“You _have_ described him,” said North, smiling too. “Especially his smile. I am short-sighted, but I could always tell Dick in a crowd if he smiled, long before I could distinguish his features. And he did lead Larry by his handkerchief. It was a regular game between them.” “Surely that is in the nature of proof!” exclaimed Ruth. “Let us call it circumstantial evidence.” “But worth even your—a scientist’s—consideration?” “Undoubtedly! By the way, what happened to Larry?” “When I thought of him again it was some little time later; he was going back to the house across the field. And—and—oh, I know it sounds mad—he was following somebody, and so were Sarah and Selina. You know, don’t you, what I mean? Dogs run quite differently when they are out on their own. And I have never known Sarah and Selina leave me to follow anyone else before, in all their lives.” “Any dog would follow Dick,” said North, and then looked as if he would like to have taken the words back, but she stopped him. “You promised,” she said. “And that, too, is a piece of evidence. As I said, I don’t want to push it a fraction of an inch beyond where it will go. But think what it means? The breaking down of that awful impassable wall between the living and the dead. Think what some knowledge, of the next step only, beyond the Gateway of Death means.” “Always supposing there is a next step,” said North. “Again there is no evidence I can accept. Though, mind you”—he was really in earnest now—“I am not among those who are content, indeed glad, that it should all end here. This old universe is too interesting a riddle to drop after a few years’ study.” “Ah, do you know Walt Whitman’s lines?— “This day, before dawn, I ascended a hill and looked at the crowded Heaven. And I said to my spirit, When we become the enfolders of these orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, Shall we be filled and satisfied then? And my spirit said, No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.” North nodded. “That’s it! I’m out for that right enough, if it’s going. I don’t say, mind you, that I’m certain we don’t go on. I’m not such a fool. But, to my mind, all the evidence so far is the other way.” “Have you ever tried to get evidence?” “No. All the methods appear to me to be objectionable, very. Even over this—this possible sight of yours—I don’t feel keen on the idea that those who have gone are hanging round their old homes, round us who cannot cognize them.” He spoke haltingly, as if expressing himself with difficulty. His unwillingness to discuss these matters again became evident.