He said, deeply troubled, "How do you know she never wears a ring?"
And he turned and looked up at her over his shoulder. The clear azure
of her eyes was like a wintry sky.
"Clive, I know more than that. I know that your wife is in New York."
"What!" he exclaimed, astonished.
"I have been aware of it for weeks," she said tranquilly.
He remained silent; she continued to caress his hair: "Your wife," she went on thoughtfully, "will learn much when she dies.
There is a compulsory university course which awaits us all,--a school
with many forms and many grades and many, many pupils. But we must die
before we can be admitted.... I have never before spoken to you as I
have spoken to-day.... Perhaps I never shall again.... The world is a
blind place--lovely but blind.
"As for the woman who wears your name but wears no ring of yours she
has been moving through my crystal for many days;--I would have made
no effort to intrude on her had she not persisted in the crystal,
haunted it,--I cannot tell you why--only that she is always there,
now.... And last night I knew that she was in New York, and why she
had come here.... Shall you see her to-day?"
"Where is she?"
"At the Regina."
"Are you sure?"
The girl calmly closed her eyes for a moment. After a brief silence
she opened them: "She is still there.... She will awake in a little
while and ring for her breakfast. The two men you drove out of the
garden last night are waiting to see her. There is another man there.
I think he is your wife's attorney.... Have you decided to see her?"
"Yes."
"You won't let what she may say about me trouble you, will you?"
"What will she say?" he asked with the naive confidence of absolute
and childish faith.
Athalie laughed: "Darling! I don't know. I'm not a witch or a
sorceress. Did you think I was?--just because I can see a little more
clearly than you?"
"I didn't know what your limit might be," he answered, smiling
slightly, in spite of his deep anxiety.
"Then let me inform you at once. My eyes are better than many
people's. Also my other self can see. And with so clear a vision,
and with intelligence--and with a very true love and reverence for
God--somehow I seem to visualise what clairvoyance, logic, and reason
combine to depict for me.