I HAD a lover, whose love had a quality that seemed to disregard
entirely the ordinary separation imposed by distance or stone walls.
During the years that we were lovers, I often felt his invisible
presence, although we were miles apart.
During the war, we were both in France. One morning early, I was
preparing in my room to go on a train journey to meet him. He was a
hundred miles away. I was hurrying, thinking of nothing but the
necessity of catching the train, and answering the girls who were
calling to me from other rooms to make haste, when I suddenly turned
to the door as though impelled to do so. My lover entered with the
quick eager impulsiveness which was his outstanding characteristic;
straight up to me he came, put his hand on mine with a close, warm
clasp, and was gone again—vanished in the same moment. I learned
later that he had been taken prisoner that morning. His appearance
had been absolutely natural, and had caused me not the slightest
sensation of fear; my heart leapt to meet him, only I felt him to be
disturbed and unhappy and that troubled me. He had not been injured
and still lives.
“IN THE LENGTHENING OF THE DAYS”
My youngest brother joined up in 1914, and was sent to Salisbury
Plain. Not long after his leaving home, very early one morning,
somewhere between half-past one and two o'clock, I lay wide awake,
and, to my astonishment, I saw him walk into our bedroom and go to
the side of my invalid sister's bed, face her, turn, give a step
towards the foot, turn again and salute her, and then lay down by her
side. I screamed with fright, a most horrible scream, and as I did
so, the vision vanished. I also awoke all the household to whom I had
to tell what had frightened me so terribly. My people would have it
that it was only a dream, although I knew it was not.
Shortly after that, my mother received a telegram saying that he was
ill and coming home. I am glad to say that to-day, he is alive and
well.
At the time I spoke to my mother again about the vision and she told
me that I had seen my brother in the lengthening of the days, which
meant he would live to a very old age.