“Ghostly it is, if you mean a thing of spirits,” said Barry, “but chilly! Why chilly?” Then he added to himself in an undertone: “I wonder! I wonder! I wish sometimes I knew more.”
“Sometimes?” cried Paula. “Always!” she added passionately. “It's a dreadful business to me. To be suddenly snatched out of the light and the warmth, away from the touch of warm fingers and the sight of dear faces! Ah, I dread it! I loathe the thought of it. I hate it!”
“And yet,” mused Barry, “somehow I cannot forget that out there somewhere there is One, kindly, genial, true,—like my dad. How good he has been to me—my dad, I mean, and that Other, too, has been good. Somehow I think of them together. Yes, I am grateful to Him.”
“Oh, God, you mean,” said Paula, a little impatiently.
“Yes, to God. He saved me to-day. 'Saved,' I say. It is a queer way to speak, after all. What I really ought to say is that God thought it best that I should camp 'round here for a bit longer before moving in nearer.”
“Nearer?”
“Yes, into the nearer circle. Life moves 'round a centre, in outer and inner circles. This is the outer circle. Nearer in there, it is kindlier, with better light and clearer vision. 'We shall know even as we are known.'” Barry mused on, as if communing with himself.
“But when you move in,” said Paula, and there was no mistaking the earnestness of her tone, “you break touch with those you love here.”
“I don't know about that,” answered Barry quickly.
“Oh, yes you do. You are out of all this,—all this,” she swept her hand at the world around her, “this good old world, all your joy and happiness, all you love. Oh, that's the worst of it; you give up your love. I hate it!” she concluded with vehemence sudden and fierce, as she shook her fist towards the stars.