Alma did not answer. Her thoughts were wandering, or she would have shrunk to find her idolised teacher turning so ominously towards materialism. But indeed it was not the first time that Bradley’s thoughts had drifted in that direction. It is not in moments of personal happiness or success that we lean with any eagerness towards the supernatural. Glimpses of a world to come are vouchsafed chiefly to those who weep and those who fail; and in proportion as the radiance of this life brightens, fades the faint aurora of the other.
In a small cottage, not far from Chalk Farm, they found Miss Combe. She was staying, as her custom was, with friends, the friends on this occasion being the editor of an evening paper and his wife; and she had scarcely arrived on her visit—some weeks before—when she had begun to ail. She was sitting up when Alma arrived, in an armchair drawn close to the window of a little back parlour, commanding a distant view of Hampstead Hill.
Wrapt in a loose dressing-gown, and leaning back in her chair, she was just touched by the spring sunshine, the brightness of which even the smoke from the great city could not subdue. She did not seem to be in pain, but her face was pale and flaccid, her eyes were heavy and dull. Her ailment was a weakness of the heart’s action, complicated with internal malady of another kind.
Tears stood in Alma’s eyes as she embraced and kissed her old friend.
‘I have brought Mr. Bradley to see you,’ she cried. ‘I am glad to see you looking so much better.’
Miss Combe smiled and held out her hand to Bradley, who took it gently.
‘When you came in,’ she said, ‘I was half dreaming. I thought I was a little child again, playing with brother Tom in the old churchyard at Taviton. Tom has only just gone out; he has been here all the morning.’ Said brother Tom, the unwashed apostle of the Hall of Science, had left unmistakable traces of his presence, for a strong odour of bad tobacco pervaded the room.
‘It seems like old times,’ proceeded the little lady, with a sad smile, ‘to be sick, and to be visited by a clergyman. I shall die in the odour of sanctity after all.’
‘You must not talk of dying,’ cried Alma.
‘You will soon be all right again.’