“You see, I never had any one person to concentrate on, unless it was old Raphael Goltz, and looking back, I see now he was a cosmic sort of person. He did really in some way grip the whole of things, and it helped me more than I had any idea of at the time. Then I cared so much for all the men out in Flanders who came in and out of my life so swiftly and spasmodically. Then I came here, and found how much I cared for all living things in the lower worlds. And he is linked up too with them all, because he cared so much. And we have both by chance, whatever chance may be, focused on Thorpe. Do you at all understand what I mean?” “Yes, after a fashion,” said North. “It’s like watching some one dimly moving about in an unknown, and to me a visionary, world. I own you are right—he moved in it too; and I am also ready to own it is possible because of my own limitations that I can only regard it as visionary.” “Raphael had many books dealing with these things,” said Ruth. “I feel so sorry now that they did not interest me then. You see, I had never lost anyone by death. I had no one to lose. It was only out in France when the men came in and drank my soup or coffee, and some slept like tired children, and others played a game of cards, or talked to me of home, and we all seemed like children of one family belonging to each other. And in a few hours, perhaps less, I would see one or more of them lying dead—gone out like flames extinguished quite suddenly. And I didn’t know what life or death meant.” North nodded. “It hits one sometimes,” he said. “And their people at home—I used to write for some of those who were brought in to the estaminet and died before they could get them farther. One thought of them all the time. Going on with their everyday life at home, and waiting. That is why what has happened to me here seems so amazingly important, why its truth needs such close questioning, why I so much want your help.” “For what it is worth it is at your disposal, and”—he paused before he went on with decision—“I own I am interested, as I have never been before in so-called communication with another world.” “There are some books here dealing with psychic faculties. I found them on the top of the oak bookcase. Mostly by German authors. Would they have been Mr. Carey’s?” “More likely they belonged to a friend of his who used to stay here.” “Oh, the German friend!” exclaimed Ruth. “You have heard of him?” “Mr. Fothersley spoke of him only this morning, and your daughter mentioned him the other day.” “He was an interesting personality, and very strong on the point that there were extraordinary powers and forces latent in man. I never cared to discuss them with him. He went too far, and looking back I think I almost unconsciously dreaded his influence over Dick. I don’t think I need have. Dick was, I recognize it now, the stronger of the two.” “But he was interested in the same things?”