When Muller had gone, Rufus sat for a long time staring into the dying fire. Then he picked up the newspaper cutting, and read through the article very carefully a second time.
"No, he has not got my idea quite," he muttered, "but he has come uncomfortably near to it."
Then he drew a long breath and shut his teeth tightly. Life had grown a more precious thing of late, and hope had taken new shapes and forms. Moreover, the possibility of a conscious existence beyond the shadow of death had been looming larger and larger for months past, and with that possibility other possibilities had come into view. What if the consequences of conduct followed men into the unseen? What if sin should separate a soul from the soul it loved? What if this life were a trust for which we should be held responsible? What if suicide should be as heinous a crime as murder? What if dying by one's own hand should stain the soul with deeper dishonour than any broken vow or unfulfilled promise? He drew away his eyes from the fire and shuddered slightly as these thoughts passed through his mind. In whatever direction he turned his thoughts he was faced with possibilities that, to say the least, were not a little disconcerting.
"If I had only known six months ago what I know now," he reflected, "I should not have put my head into this noose with so light a heart. I should have been content to have gone on with my work as time-keeper at the mine. But I was impatient for success, and quite certain that death was the end of all things."
Then across the frosty air the parish clock fixed high in the church tower struck the hour of eleven.
Rufus counted the strokes as they vibrated solemnly through the night.
"Do the dead ever hear, I wonder," he said to himself, and he shuddered again.
Then his thoughts turned to the book that he had been reading earlier in the evening and he began to repeat almost unconsciously one of the stanzas that Madeline had marked:
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark,
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark.
And though from out the bounds of time and space
The floods may bear me far,
I hope——
Then he stopped suddenly and rose hurriedly to his feet. "I am growing morbid," he said. "I wish Muller had kept the article to himself. In a case of this kind ignorance is bliss." And he turned out the lamp and climbed slowly upstairs to bed.