Aleriel/Part 6/Chapter 1
PART VI.— CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER I.
CONSIDERATION.
"I should like to go," I exclaimed.
"Oh, don't," exclaimed Maud. "It is a long journey to Switzerland, and,"—she paused—"and I do not like these supernatural beings, if they really are such. I do not like anything above this earth. Perhaps it is a mere imposture. If so, you would show yourself a mere fool to go; if it is not, you will be utterly in their power. Do not go; I believe it is all nonsense, after all. Don't go."
Her arguments were convincing. I thought over it. No, I would give it up. It might be, as she urged, a mere trick of a designing man, or a dream of some maniac.
Next morning, when the subject had been slept over, and I had just been working out some practical scheme of business, Maud, looking up from her work, said:
"If you are going to Switzerland, I wish you would take me with you."
"But, my dear, I have given up all thoughts of going. It is an imposture probably, or a delusion of a very eccentric man."
"I should like to ferret it out," she replied. "I wonder what it all means. Do these statements suit what astronomers have really found out about the planets?"
"As far as I know they do. But, for all that, I think it a mere delusion of some person, who perhaps has learnt something about science."
If there is anything in it, surely it would be worth seeing some one from another world, even if one went to Switzerland to see him."
"Well, my dear, but what is the good of it? The probabilities are against it; and, beside that, you were opposed to my going last night."
"So I was; but give me the privilege of my sex. I am full of curiosity about these curious beings. I wonder what they are like."
To make a long story short, I yielded. I made arrangements for going away. Our things were packed, and in a week from the receipt of the mysterious packet, we were en route for Switzerland. We crossed viâ Newhaven to France, and then from Dieppe went to Paris. There stopping a day to rest, we proceeded viâ Dijon and Dol to Neufchatel, and thence to Berne.