“I don’t know why I tell you this; the talk seemed to lead up to it. It may be a warning to you. That night--the night after the cremation--I sat up in the hall. She was there,” he nodded at Enid. “She had fallen asleep in a chair, poor girl. You know the house at Rotherfield, Malone. It was in the big hall. I sat by the fireplace, the room all draped in shadow, and my mind draped in shadow also. I should have sent her to bed, but she was lying back in her chair and I did not wish to wake her. It may have been one in the morning--I remember the moon shining through the stained-glass window. I sat and I brooded. Then suddenly there came a noise.” “Yes, sir?” “It was low at first--just a ticking. Then it grew louder and more distinct--it was a clear rat-tat-tat. Now comes the queer coincidence, the sort of thing out of which legends grow when credulous folk have the shaping of them. You must know that my wife had a peculiar way of knocking at a door. It was really a little tune which she played with her fingers. I got into the same way so that we could each know when the other knocked. Well, it seemed to me--of course my mind was strained and abnormal--that the taps shaped themselves into the well-known rhythm of her knock. I couldn’t localise it. You can think how eagerly I tried. It was above me, somewhere on the woodwork. I lost sense of time. I daresay it was repeated a dozen times at least.” “Oh, Dad, you never told me!” “No, but I woke you up. I asked you to sit quiet with me for a little.” “Yes, I remember that.” “Well, we sat, but nothing happened. Not a sound more. Of course it was a delusion. Some insect in the wood; the ivy on the outer wall. My own brain furnished the rhythm. Thus do we make fools and children of ourselves. But it gave me an insight. I saw how even a clever man could be deceived by his own emotions.” “But how do you know, sir, that it was _not_ your wife?” “Absurd, Malone! Absurd, I say! I tell you I saw her in the flames. What was there left?” “Her soul, her spirit.” Challenger shook his head sadly. “When the dear body dissolved into its elements--when its gases went into the air and its residue of solids sank into a grey dust--it was the end. There was no more. She had played her part, played it beautifully, nobly. It was done. Death ends all, Malone. This soul-talk is the Animism of savages. It is a superstition, a myth. As a physiologist I will undertake to produce crime or virtue by vascular control or cerebral stimulation. I will turn a Jekyll into a Hyde by a surgical operation. Another can do it by a psychological suggestion. Alcohol will do it. Drugs will do it. Absurd, Malone, absurd! As the tree falls, so does it lie. There is no next morning ... night--eternal night ... and long rest for the weary worker.” “Well, it’s a sad philosophy.” “Better a sad than a false one.” “Perhaps so. There is something virile and manly in facing the worst. I would not contradict. My reason is with you.”