"Because her nature is double, as is mine," answered the old man.
"Dorothy, like her sisters and mother, passed out of this life more
than a hundred and fifty years ago."
"And did the same causes operate to bring her back to earth?"
Ah Ben became more serious than ever as he answered: "You have
touched upon the sorest point of all, and one which requires further
elucidation. Sudden and unnatural death has a retarding tendency upon
the spirit's progress; but where one has caused his own destruction,
the evil resulting is incalculable. I was a suicide; and ten thousand
times over had I better have borne all the ills that earth could heap
upon me, than have stooped to such folly. For in what has it resulted?
A prolonged mental agony, such as you can never conceive; for I have
no home in heaven nor earth, but am forced to wander amid the shadows
of each world, unrecognized by those either above or below me. Here I
am shunned upon every hand, and, as you saw for yourself, I was equally
avoided in Levachan. But that is not all; in the ignorance and
selfishness of my grief, I yearned for my lost ones with a solicitude,
a consuming fierceness and power of will which insanity only can equal.
By nature I was intense; and even had I not committed the fatal act, my
vitality would have burned itself away with the awful concentration of
feeling. But it must be remembered that I was not the only sufferer from
this pitiful lack of self-control. The stronger desires and emotions of
the living influence the dead--I use the words in their common
acceptation for the sake of convenience--and here is where I caused
such incalculable injury to my own child; for Dorothy, having entered
the spirit world with inferior powers of resistance, fell under the
spell I had wrought, and joined me in the haunting of this old house.
Here, Mr. Henley, am I, a suicide, justly deserving the punishment I
receive; but there is my child, as innocent as the air of heaven,
forced to suffer with me, and it is no small part of my chastisement
to realize this fact. People fly from us as they would from pestilence,
both in this world and the other, although many of the dwellers in the
higher state, from their greater knowledge and loftier development,
simply avoid us. And we can not criticise their action in either world,
for we are not adapted to either state. We are outcasts."
Ah Ben paused for a moment, and then became deeply impressive, as he
added: "Mr. Henley, let the experience of one who has suffered, and who will
continue to suffer more than you can possibly understand--let his
experience, I say, warn you against the unreasonable yearning for the
return of those who have passed on to their spiritual state! Here our
eyes are blinded to the blessedness to come, and it is well it is so;
for, were it otherwise, the discipline of earth life would be lost,
as too monstrous to be endured. No man could submit to the restraints
of matter, with the power and freedom of spirit in sight. If once I
could have realized the dreadful results entailed upon what I had
lost, by my effort to recover it, I would have known that the
blackest curse would have been trifling by contrast. Let the dead
rest! and let one who knows persuade you that their entrance into
spirit life is a time rather for rejoicing than regret!"