"Perhaps I ought to keep it secret." "Of course you ought to tell me! What was the message ?" "He said that I had rent the veil, wilfully, and that I was often surrounded by the evil demons who had come rushing through; that only by fasting and praying could I hope to drive them back, and close the rent which I had made." "I shouldn't allow myself to think too much of what he said," said Bill hoarsely.

"And yet--and yet, Bubbles?
There may have been something in it--." He spoke very earnestly, poor boy.
"Of course there was a great deal in it.

But they're not always demons," she said slowly.

"Now, for instance, as I sit here, where good, simple people have been praying together for hundreds of years, the atmosphere is kind and holy, not wicked and malignant, as it was last night." She waited a moment, then began again, "I remember going into a cottage not long ago, where an old man holds a prayer meeting every Wednesday evening--he's a Dissenter--you know the sort of man I mean?
Well, I felt extraordinarily comforted, and _left alone_." Her voice sank to a low whisper.

"I suppose"-- there came a little catch in her voice--"I suppose, Bill, that I am what people used to call 'possessed.' In old days I should have been burnt as a witch.