'When? Ask any man who has passionately loved a woman and lost her; ask him at what moment mysticism was forced upon him--at what moment he felt that he must either accept a spiritualistic theory of the universe or go mad; ask him this, and he will tell you that it was at that moment when he first looked upon her as she lay dead, with Corruption's foul fingers waiting to soil and stain. What are you going to do with the cross?' 'Lock it up as safely as I can,' I said; 'what else is there to do with it?' He looked into my face and said, 'You are a rationalist.' 'I am.' 'You do not believe in a supernatural world?' 'My disbelief of it,' I said, 'is something more than an exercise of the reason. It is a passion, an angry passion. But what should you do with the cross if you were in my place?' 'Put it back in the tomb.' I had great difficulty in suppressing my ridicule, but I merely said, 'That would be, as I have told you, to insure its being stolen again.' 'There is the promise to the dead man or woman on whose breast it lay.' 'This I intend to keep in the spirit like a reasonable man--not in the letter like--' 'Promises to the dead must be kept to the letter, or no peace can come to the bereaved heart. You are talking to a man who _knows_!' 'I will commit no such outrage upon reason as to place a priceless jewel in a place where I know it will be stolen.' 'You _will_ replace the cross in that tomb.' As he spoke he shook my hands warmly, and said, '_Au revoir_. Remember, I shall always be delighted to see you.' It was not till I saw him disappear amongst the crowd that I could give way to the laughter which I had so much difficulty in suppressing. What a relief it was to be able to do this! VI THE SONG OF Y WYDDFA I After this I had one or two interviews with our solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon important family matters connected with my late uncle's property. I had been one night to the theatre with my mother and my aunt. The house had been unusually crowded. When the performance was over, we found that the streets were deluged with rain. Our carriage had been called some time before it drew up, and we were standing under the portico amid a crowd of impatient ladies when a sound fell or seemed to fall on my ears which stopped for the moment the very movements of life. Amid the rattle of wheels and horses' feet and cries of messengers about carriages and cabs, I seemed to distinguish a female voice singing: 'I met in a glade a lone little maid. At the foot of y Wyddfa the white; Oh, lissom her feet as the mountain hind, And darker her hair than the night!' It was the voice of Winifred singing as in a dream. I heard my aunt say, 'Do look at that poor girl singing and holding out her little baskets! She must be crazed to be offering baskets for sale in this rain and at this time of night.'