"I have no reason to believe that there are, unless you include wrongly in the term the merely physical replica. It appears to be established that now and then two human beings are born who, throughout their respective lives remain physically so much alike that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between them."
"I didn't mean only that," she said quickly.
"You meant the double in mind and soul as well as in body," said
Chichester.
"Yes."
"How can one see if a soul is the double of another soul?" said Malling.
"Then you think such a story as Mr. Chichester related in his sermon all nonsense?" said Lady Sophia, almost hotly, and yet, it seemed to Malling, with a slight lifting of the countenance, as if relief perhaps were stealing through her.
"I thought it a legitimate and powerful invention introduced to point a moral."
"Nothing more than that?" said Lady Sophia.
Malling did not reply; for suddenly a strange question had risen up in him. Did he really think it nothing more than that? He glanced at Chichester, and the curate's eyes seemed asking him to say.
The rector's heavy and powerful frame shifted in his chair, and his voice was heard saying: