I HAVE JUST returned from Philadelphia.
Maybe it was foolish of me. It's entirely possible that the woman who brought me the manuscript was aware of the existence of Dr. Braningwell and his wife. There is no way of knowing for certain. I can only wonder again. If this is so, why should she go to all that trouble to deceive me?
At first, I thought of knocking on the Braningwells' door and telling them my story.
Rationality soon dispensed with that.
What I did was wait until their maid took the baby for a carriage ride. I walked behind her to a small neighborhood park, and, there, while she was sitting on a bench, I stopped and chatted with her briefly, glancing at the child. Feeling a perfect fool for doing so. But feeling something else as well as I stared into the eyes of that child.
Awe.
Does that baby boy possess the soul of my brother Chris? Will he really go to India when he has passed his thirtieth year, meet a young woman possessing the soul of my brother's wife Ann and marry her?
I wish to God I knew.
I'm sixty-three years old, however. It's obvious I'll never live to verify it. I could tell my children to check it out but I'm sure they'd find it difficult to retain interest in a vague, improbable event which may or may not occur decades hence in a country thousands of miles away.
So there it will, doubtless, end.
All I can do is repeat: If the manuscript is true, all of us had better examine our lives.
Carefully.
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