"Then, I suppose, he is a madman," Lily said.
Maurice started round on his chair.
"That's a—a rather shocking presumption, isn't it?" he exclaimed.
"Well," the Canon said, knocking the ashes slowly out of his pipe, "if you exclude the supernatural in such a case, and come upon the natural, I must say I think Lily is not far wrong. The man who hears perpetually a non-existent sound connected with some incident of his past will at any rate soon be on the highway to insanity, I fancy."
Maurice said nothing for a moment, but Lily noticed that he looked deeply disturbed. His lips were pressed together. His eyes shone with excitement, and his pale forehead frowned. In the short silence that followed on the Canon's remark, he seemed to be thinking steadfastly. At last he lifted up his head with a jerk and said:
"A man may have a strong imagination, without being a madman, Canon. He may choose to translate a mere memory into a sound-companion, just as men often choose to play with their fancies in various ways. He may elect to say to himself, I remember vividly the cry of—" He stopped abruptly, then went on hastily, "the sound of bells. My mind hears them. Let me—for my amusement—push on my imagination a step further and see what will happen. Hark! It's done. My ears can hear now what a moment ago only my mind could hear. Yes, my ears hear it now."
He spoke with such conviction, and the gesture which he linked with his words, was so dramatic, that Lily pushed herself up on the pillows of the sofa, and even the Canon involuntarily assumed an attitude of keen attention.
"Why, Dale," the latter said after a moment, "you should have been an actor, not a doctor. Really you led me to anticipate bells, and I only hear the wind. Lily, didn't you feel as I did, eh?"
Lily had gone a little pale. She looked across at Maurice.
"I don't know that I expected to hear bells, father," she said slowly.