“You believe in them?” she cried delightedly, with a sudden motion as if about to clap her hands. “Now tell me, have you any reason for it?”
And still I strove to keep back the revelation I felt sure was coming. “I believe that there is _life_ everywhere—not _material_ only, not merely what is palpable to our senses—but immaterial and invisible as well. We believe in our own immaterial essence—call it ‘soul,’ or ‘spirit,’ or what you will. Why should not other similar essences exist around us, _not_ linked on to a visible and _material_ body? Did not God make this swarm of happy insects, to dance in this sunbeam for one hour of bliss, for no other object, that we can imagine, than to swell the sum of conscious happiness? And where shall we dare to draw the line, and say ‘He has made all these and no more’?”
“Yes, yes!” she assented, watching me with sparkling eyes. “But these are only reasons for not _denying_. You have more reasons than this, have you not?”
“Well, yes,” I said, feeling I might safely tell all now. “And I could not find a fitter time or place to say it. I have _seen_ them—and in this very wood!”
Lady Muriel asked no more questions. Silently she paced at my side, with head bowed down and hands clasped tightly together. Only, as my tale went on, she drew a little short quick breath now and then, like a child panting with delight. And I told her what I had never yet breathed to any other listener, of my double life, and, more than that (for _mine_ might have been but a noonday-dream), of the double life of those two dear children.
And when I told her of Bruno’s wild gambols, she laughed merrily; and when I spoke of Sylvie’s sweetness and her utter unselfishness and trustful love, she drew a deep breath, like one who hears at last some precious tidings for which the heart has ached for a long while; and the happy tears chased one another down her cheeks.
“I have often longed to meet an angel,” she whispered, so low that I could hardly catch the words. “I’m _so_ glad I’ve seen Sylvie! My heart went out to the child the first moment that I saw her—— Listen!” she broke off suddenly. “That’s Sylvie singing! I’m sure of it! Don’t you know her voice?”
“I have heard _Bruno_ sing, more than once,” I said: “but I never heard Sylvie.”