body by the short sword of a soldier whose lust-desire you had had the hardihood to refuse—and I fled away upon the instant.'
Said I: 'I half-knew it—she died a violent death. You—were you glad to be quit of her filthy flesh, her surroundings, her ignorance?'
Said the soul: 'Glad? Such things mean nothing to me. Your body, be it sweet or foul, has no bearing on my long journey. Motives—motif—back of your human acts make me glad or sorry at leaving you.'
Said I: 'Tell me about a time when I seemed someway fine, humanly fine.'
Said the Soul: 'In London, near the end of the seventeenth century, before and during the period of the Gordon Riots, you lived in a way of peace. From when you were fourteen until you were twenty-nine you lived alone with your little lame half-sister whom you cared for very devotedly, very tenderly.'
My little half-sister— Until the Soul spoke of her there was no vision, no image like her. Then something of me remembered.
Said I: 'What was she like? Who were our parents?'
Said the Soul: 'Your mother died at your birth, hers at her birth. Your father was hanged at Tyburn for forgery. The sister was pale, large-eyed, long-haired, crippled from a dislocated shoulder and
