And she closed the door after her softly.
Then Mortimer's vision of sister Bell was a dream? Perhaps it was not. Perhaps this real world is linked more closely to the invisible sphere than in our guesses. It may be an angel's hand which touches our cheek, when we think that it is only the breeze. ¿Quien sabe? Who can say that in sleep we do not touch hands with the spirits of another world—the angels of hereafter? And what may death be but an intellectual dream!—Who knows?
Nobody knows. "But," suggests the gentle reader, "suppose you dispense with your Hamlet-like philosophy, and go on with your story, like the pleasant author that you are, instead of putting us to sleep, as you have your hero."
Reader, the hint was merited.
IX.
"My eyes make pictures when they are shut."
Coleridge.