He had frightened her into heaven; and his heaven, a definite
locality in the skies, had its foretaste here on earth in miniature--The
Towers, house, and garden. Into his dolorous scheme of a handful saved
and millions damned, his enclosure, as it were, of sheep and goats, he
had swept her before she was aware of it. Her mind no longer was her
own. And it was Mrs. Marsh who kept the thought-stream open, though
tempered, as she deemed, with that touch of craven, superstitious mercy.
But what I found it difficult to understand, and still more difficult to
accept, was that, during her year abroad, she had been so haunted with a
secret dread of that hideous after-death that she had finally revolted
and tried to recover that clearer state of mind she had enjoyed before
the religious bully had stunned her--yet had tried in vain. She had
returned to The Towers to find her soul again, only to realize that it
was lost eternally. The cleaner state of mind lay then beyond recovery.
In the reaction that followed the removal of his terrible "suggestion,"
she felt the crumbling of all that he had taught her, but searched in
vain for the peace and beauty his teachings had destroyed. Nothing came
to replace these.
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