and now, doctor, I can tell you the mistake you made.” He turned pale and looked at me with eyes full of fear. “What were you doing with a bottle of nicotine in your case?” He threw up his hands and cried, “My God, how awful!” Then he said, “I had it there to take to a man in the country who would not believe that nicotine is as clear as water when fresh, and I was going to show him.”

“Well, you came near fixing me with it, didn’t you?”

“How do you know? You surely did not see that?”

“What was it,” asked my husband.

“Tell them.”

“Well, you took a needle and filled it about half full of this nicotine, before you discovered what you were doing. Then you threw down that needle and procured another, filled it with caffeine, and injected it into this arm, and I wondered if it hurt.”

“Yes,” said he, “you did see everything. But I do not understand this at all, I never read of anything like this in all my studies. What do you think of it?” he suddenly asked me.

“Well, doctor,” said I, “you may not understand this, but it looks as if I had to have this experience to take away my fear of death, or rather fear of the grave. It has tormented me for many years, but it is all gone now. Have I not passed through what you call death? Do I not KNOW now what death is, and I am happy to know that it is just a dropping off of an old dress or coat and entering a higher sphere of action. Then why bother about a cast-off body? Lay it away, if you like, for memory’s sake, but mourn not the Soul that inhabited it. For it sees all that you do.”