The ladies present looked at one another in some confusion, and Ashe caught in the eyes of Mrs. Staggchase, who sat half facing him, a gleam of amusement. This emboldened him to repeat the question which had been abandoned by its first asker, who had evidently been overwhelmed by the delicacy of the distinction of sects made by Mrs. Crapps. "Do you then," he asked, "deny the existence of death?" "Utterly," the seeress returned, bending upon him a bold look as if to challenge him to differ from what she asserted. "It is as amazing as it is melancholy that mankind should have submitted to the indignity of death so long." "How can they submit to that which does not exist?" "It exists in seeming, but not in reality." A murmur ran through the company, and Philip met the eyes of Mrs. Fenton, who shook her head slightly, as who would say that discussion was futile. "But--but how"--one hearer began falteringly, and then stopped, evidently too overwhelmed by the astounding nature of the proposition laid down to be able even to frame a question. "Indeed," Mrs. Crapps said, taking up the word, "we may well ask how. It transcends the incredible that the monstrous delusion of death should ever have been entertained for an instant. The explanation lies in sin. Death is but the projection of a sin-burdened conscience upon the mists of the unknown. Thank God that it has been given to our generation to tear away the veil from this falsehood, and to recognize the absolute unreality of the phantom which the ignorance and superstition of guilty humanity have conjured up." The smooth, deliberate voice of Mrs. Staggchase broke the silence which this declaration produced. "It is then your idea that death comes entirely from the belief of mankind?" "What we call death undoubtedly has that origin," Mrs. Crapps answered. "How then could so extraordinary a delusion have had a beginning?" A faint shade crossed the face of the seeress, but it merged instantly into a smile of patient superiority. "That is the question unbelief always asks," she said. "It seems so difficult to answer, and yet it is really so simple. The idea of death of course arose from a distorted projection of the condition of sleep upon the diseased imagination. With sin came the bewilderment of human reason, and the delusion followed as an inevitable morbid growth." "Then the earlier generations of mankind were immortal?" "Undoubtedly. We have traces of the fact in all the old mythologies." "But what became of them?"