“No, it is not natural that a man of your willpower should become the slave of a research so hopeless--as it seemed. Who was it, after we had mastered every detail and tried every theory and examined every scrap of evidence, and after you had examined the ground and talked to the surviving witness--I say, after the way had been prepared--who was it sent the two voices from the grave--the one which made it quite certain that those two were the only persons in the wood, and the other which showed that they were quarrelling, and that one was ungoverned in his wrath? Can you explain that, Leonard?” “You believe that we were led by unseen hands, step by step, towards the discovery, for the purpose of those who led.” “There were two purposes: one for the consolation of that old man, and the other for yourself.” “How for myself?” “Look back only a month. Are you the same or are you changed? I told you then that you were outside all other men, because you had everything--wealth sufficient, pride of ancestry, intellectual success, and no contact with the lower world, the vulgar and the common, or the criminal or the disreputable world. You remember? Yes--are you changed? “If to possess all these undesirable things can change one, I am changed.” “If to lose the things which separate you from the world, and to receive the things which bring you nearer to the world, do change a man, then you are changed. You will change more and more; because more and more you will feel that you belong to the world of men and women--not of caste and books. When all is gone, there still remains yourself--alone before the world.” He made no reply. “Where is now your pride of birth? It is gone. Where is your contempt for things common and unclean? You have had the vision of St. Peter. If there are things common and unclean, they belong to you as well as to the meaner sort--for to that kind you also belong.” “Something of this I have understood.” “And there was the other purpose. While with blow after blow it is destroyed, you were led on and on with this mystery; voices from the dead were brought to you, till at last the whole mystery was made plain and stood out confessed--and with it I was moved and compelled to follow you, till at the end I was taken to see the dying man, and to deliver to him the forgiveness of the man he slew. Oh, Leonard, believe me; if it is true that the soul survives the death of the body, if it is possible for the soul still to see what goes on among the living, then have you and I been directed and led.” Again he made no reply. But he was moved beyond the power of speech.