Part 38 (2/2)
”That was simply one of Mr. Rutherford's extravagant expressions,”
Lyle replied, ”the natural surroundings here are certainly beautiful, but their beauty only makes the conditions mentally and morally the more painfully conspicuous, and if I can see the contrast so plainly, who have always lived here and known no other life, how must it look to one such as he!”
”Why do you always insist upon it so strongly that you have never known any other life than this?” inquired Miss Gladden.
”Why?” asked Lyle, in surprise, ”I suppose simply because it is a fact, the one hateful truth that I despise, and so I say it over and over to myself, to check these foolish dream-fancies of mine, that seem as if I had known something better sometime.”
Lyle spoke with more bitterness than Miss Gladden had ever heard before, and the latter answered gently:
”If I were in your place, Lyle dear, I would not try to check these fancies; I would encourage them.”
Lyle gazed at her friend in astonishment. ”Encourage them!” she repeated, ”I don't understand your meaning, why would you advise that?”
”To see to what they would lead, my dear.” Then, as Lyle looked bewildered, she continued:
”Did it never occur to you, Lyle, that these fancies, as you call them, might possibly be an effort on the part of memory to recall something, long ago forgotten?”
”I never thought of such a possibility,” she replied, slowly.
Miss Gladden threw one arm about her caressingly.
”If these were mere fancies why should they occur so persistently, and why should there be this sense of familiarity, of which you have spoken, with other and far different a.s.sociations than these, unless there is some distinct image hidden away in the recesses of your brain, which your mind is trying to recall?”
Lyle had grown very pale; she had caught the idea which Miss Gladden was trying to convey, and her form trembled, while her lips and delicate nostrils quivered with suppressed agitation.
”Leslie,” she cried, ”do you mean that you think it possible there is any reality in it,--that I have ever known a different life from this,--a life anything like that which seems to come back to me?”
”I think it not only possible, but probable,” said her friend, drawing the trembling girl closer to herself, ”and that is why I want you to encourage these impressions, and see if you will not, after a time, be able to recall the past more definitely.”
”But why do you believe this?” questioned Lyle, ”How did you ever think of it?”
”When you first told me of your fancies, as you called them, and of your dreams, constantly recurring since your earliest childhood, I felt that they must be produced by something that had really occurred, some time in the past, but perhaps so long ago that only the faintest impression was left upon your mind; but however faint, to me it seemed proof that the reality had existed. The more I have questioned you, the more I have become convinced of this, and I find I am not alone in my opinion.”
”Have you talked with Jack, and does he think as you do?” Lyle questioned. Miss Gladden answered in the affirmative.
”Is that the reason he has asked me so often regarding my early life?”
”Yes, he has questioned you, hoping you might be able to recall something of those years which you say seem to you only a blank. We can only surmise regarding your early life, but if you could recall some slight incident, or some individual, it might prove whether our surmises were correct.” Then, as Lyle remained silent, Miss Gladden continued:
”That face which you always see in your dreams, must be the face of some one you have really seen and known.”
”Yes,” Lyle answered dreamily, ”I have often thought of that, and have tried to remember when, or where, it could have been.”
For a few moments, both were silent; Lyle, in her abstraction, loosened her hair, and it fell around her like a veil of fine-spun gold. An idea suddenly occurred to Miss Gladden, and rising from her chair, she gathered up the golden ma.s.s, and began to rearrange and fasten it, Lyle scarcely heeding her action, so absorbed was she in thought.
When she had completed her work, she looked critically at Lyle for a moment, and seeming satisfied with the result, asked her to look in the gla.s.s. Half mechanically, Lyle did as requested, but at the first glance at the face reflected there, she uttered a low cry, and stood as if transfixed. Miss Gladden had arranged her hair in a style worn nearly twenty years before, and in imitation of the photograph which Jack had shown her. The effect was magical, as it showed Lyle's face to be an exact counterpart of the beautiful pictured face.
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