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The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance

by Marie Corelli · English · Gutenberg #4251 · 743,585 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance

Author: Marie Corelli


        
Release date: July 1, 2003 [eBook #4251]
                Most recently updated: June 10, 2013

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4251

Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE EVERLASTING: A REALITY OF ROMANCE ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.









THE LIFE EVERLASTING

A REALITY OF ROMANCE

BY MARIE CORELLI

AUTHOR OF THELMA, ETC.





CONTENTS

          AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE
     I.   THE HEROINE BEGINS HER STORY
    II.   THE FAIRY SHIP
   III.   THE ANGEL OF A DREAM
    IV.   A BUNCH OF HEATHER
     V.   AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
    VI.   RECOGNITION
   VII.   MEMORIES
  VIII.   VISIONS
    IX.   DOUBTFUL DESTINY
     X.   STRANGE ASSOCIATIONS
    XI.   ONE WAY OF LOVE
   XII.   A LOVE-LETTER
  XIII.   THE HOUSE OF ASELZION
   XIV.   CROSS AND STAR
    XV.   A FIRST LESSON
   XVI.   SHADOW AND SOUND
  XVII.   THE MAGIC BOOK
 XVIII.   DREAMS WITHIN A DREAM
   XIX.   THE UNKNOWN DEEP
    XX.   INTO THE LIGHT




THE LIFE EVERLASTING

A REALITY OF ROMANCE




AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE


In the Gospels of the only Divine Friend this world has ever had or
ever will have, we read of a Voice, a 'Voice in the Wilderness.' There
have been thousands of such Voices;--most of them ineffectual. All
through the world's history their echoes form a part of the universal
record, and from the very beginning of time they have sounded forth
their warnings or entreaties in vain. The Wilderness has never cared to
hear them. The Wilderness does not care to hear them now.

Why, then, do I add an undesired note to the chorus of rejected appeal?
How dare I lift up my voice in the Wilderness, when other voices, far
stronger and sweeter, are drowned in the laughter of fools and the
mockery of the profane? Truly, I do not know. But I am sure that I am
not moved by egotism or arrogance. It is simply out of love and pity
for suffering human kind that I venture to become another Voice
discarded--a voice which, if heard at all, may only serve to awaken the
cheap scorn and derision of the clowns of the piece.

Yet, should this be so, I would not have it otherwise, I have never at
any time striven to be one with the world, or to suit my speech
pliantly to the conventional humour of the moment. I am often attacked,
yet am not hurt; I am equally often praised, and am not elated. I have
no time to attend to the expression of opinions, which, whether good or
bad, are to me indifferent. And whatever pain I have felt or feel, in
experiencing human malice, has been, and is, in the fact that human
malice should exist at all,--not for its attempted wrong towards
myself. For I, personally speaking, have not a moment to waste among
the mere shadows of life which are not Life itself. I follow the
glory,--not the gloom.

So whether you, who wander in darkness of your own making, care to come
towards the little light which leads me onward, or whether you prefer
to turn away from me altogether into your self-created darker depths,
is not my concern. I cannot force you to bear me company. God Himself
cannot do that, for it is His Will and Law that each human soul shall
shape its own eternal future. No one mortal can make the happiness or
salvation of another. I, like yourselves, am in the 'Wilderness,'--but
I know that there are ways of making it blossom like the rose!
Yet,--were all my heart and all my love outpoured upon you, I could not
teach you the Divine transfiguring charm,--unless you, equally with all
your hearts and all your love, resolutely and irrevocably WILLED to
learn.

Nevertheless, despite your possible indifference,--your often sheer
inertia--I cannot pass you by, having peace and comfort for myself
without at least offering to share that peace and comfort with you.
Many of you are very sad,--and I would rather you were happy. Your ways
of living are trivial and unsatisfactory--your so-called 'pleasant'
vices lead you into unforeseen painful perplexities--your ideals of
what may be best for your own enjoyment and advancement fall far short
of your dreams,--your amusements pall on your over-wearied
senses,--your youth hurries away like a puff of thistledown on the
wind,--and you spend all your time feverishly in trying to live without
understanding Life. Life, the first of all things, the essence of all
things,--Life which is yours to hold and to keep, and to RE-CREATE over
and over again in your own persons,--this precious jewel you throw
away, and when it falls out of your possession by your own act, you
think such an end was necessary and inevitable. Poor unhappy mortals!
So self-sufficient, so proud, so ignorant! Like some foolish rustic,
who, finding a diamond, sees no difference between it and a bit of
glass, you, with the whole Universe sweeping around you in mighty
beneficent circles of defensive, protective and ever re-creative
power,--power which is yours to use and to control--imagine that the
entire Cosmos is the design of mere blind unintelligent Chance, and
that the Divine Life which thrills within you serves no purpose save to
lead you to Death! Most wonderful and most pitiful it is that such
folly, such blasphemy should still prevail,--and that humanity should
still ascribe to the Almighty Creator less wisdom and less love than
that with which He has endowed His creatures. For the very first lesson
in the beginning of knowledge is that Life is the essential Being of
God, and that each individual intelligent outcome of Life is deathless
as God Himself.

The 'Wilderness' is wide,--and within it we all find ourselves,--some
wandering far astray--some crouching listlessly among shadows, too
weary to move at all--others, sauntering along in idle indifference,
now and then vaguely questioning how soon and where the journey will
end,--and few ever discovering that it is not a 'Wilderness' at all,
but a garden of sweet sights and sounds, where every day should be a
glory and every night a benediction. For when the veil of mere
Appearances has been lifted we are no longer deceived into accepting
what Seems for what Is. The Reality of Life is Happiness;--the Delusion
of Life, which we ourselves create by improper balance and imperfect
comprehension of our own powers, must needs cause Sorrow, because in
such self-deception we only dimly see the truth, just as a person born
blind may vaguely guess at the beauty of bright day. But for the Soul
that has found Itself, there are no more misleading lights or shadows
between its own everlastingness and the everlastingness of God.

All the world over there are religions of various kinds, more or less
suited to the various types and races of humanity. Most of these forms
of faith have been evolved from the brooding brain of Man himself, and
have nothing 'divine,' in them. In the very early ages nearly all the
religious creeds were mere methods for terrorising the ignorant and the
weak--and some of them were so revolting, so bloodthirsty and brutal,
that one cannot now read of them without a shudder of repulsion.
Nevertheless, from the very first dawn of his intelligence, man appears
always to have felt the necessity of believing in something stronger
and more lasting than himself,--and his first gropings for truth led
him to evolve desperate notions of something more cruel, more
relentless, and more wicked than himself, rather than ideals of
something more beautiful, more just, more faithful and more loving than
he could be. The dawn of Christianity brought the first glimmering
suggestion that a gospel of love and pity might be more serviceable in
the end to the needs of the world, than a ruthless code of slaughter
and vengeance--though history shows us that the annals of Christianity
itself are stained with crime and shamed by the shedding of innocent
blood. Only in these latter days has the world become faintly conscious
of the real Force working behind and through all things--the soul of
the Divine, or the Psychic element, animating and inspiring all visible
and invisible Nature. This soul of the Divine--this Psychic element,
however, is almost entirely absent from the teaching of the Christian
creed to-day, with the result that the creed itself is losing its
power. I venture to say that a very small majority of the millions of
persons worshipping in the various forms of the Christian Church really
and truly believe what they publicly profess. Clergy and laity alike
are tainted with this worst of all hypocrisies--that of calling God to
witness their faith when they know they are faithless. It may be asked
how I dare to make such an assertion? I dare, because I know! It would
be impossible to the people of this or any other country to honestly
believe the Christian creed, and yet continue to live as they do. Their
lives give the lie to their avowed religion, and it is this daily
spectacle of the daily life of governments, trades, professions and
society which causes me to feel that the general aspect of Christendom
at the present day, with all its Churches and solemn observances, is
one of the most painful and profound hypocrisy. You who read this
page,--(possibly with indignation) you call yourself a Christian, no
doubt. But ARE you? Do you truly think that when death shall come to
you it is really NOT death, but the simple transition into another and
better life? Do you believe in the actual immortality of your soul, and
do you realise what it means? You do? You are quite sure? Then, do you
live as one convinced of it? Are you quite indifferent to the riches
and purely material advantages of this world?--are you as happy in
poverty as in wealth, and are you independent of social esteem? Are you
bent on the very highest and most unselfish ideals of life and conduct?
I do not say you are not; I merely ask if you ARE. If your answer is in
the affirmative, do not give the lie to your creed by your daily
habits, conversation and manners; for this is what thousands of
professing Christians do, and the clergy are by no means exempt.

I know very well, of course, that I must not expect your appreciation,
or even your attention, in matters purely spiritual. The world is too
much with you, and you become obstinate of opinion and rooted in
prejudice. Nevertheless, as I said before, this is not my concern. Your
moods are not mine, and with your prejudices I have nothing to do. My
creed is drawn from Nature--Nature, just, invincible, yet
tender--Nature, who shows us that Life, as we know it now, at this very
time and in this very world, is a blessing so rich in its as yet unused
powers and possibilities, that it may be truly said of the greater
majority of human beings that scarce one of them has ever begun to
learn HOW to live.

Shakespeare, the greatest human exponent of human nature at its best
and worst,--the profound Thinker and Artist who dealt boldly with the
facts of good and evil as they truly are,--and did not hesitate to
contrast them forcibly, without any of the deceptive 'half-tones' of
vice and virtue which are the chief stock-in-trade of such modern
authors as we may call 'degenerates,'--makes his Hamlet exclaim:--

    "What a piece of work is man!--how noble in
     reason!--how infinite in faculty!--in form and moving
     how express and admirable!--in action how like an
     angel!--in apprehension how like a god!"

Let us consider two of these designations in particular: 'How infinite
in faculty!'--and 'In apprehension how like a god!' The sentences are
prophetic, like so many of Shakespeare's utterances. They foretell the
true condition of the Soul of Man when it shall have discovered its
capabilities. 'Infinite in faculty'--that is to say--Able to do all it
shall WILL to do. There is no end to this power,--no hindrance in
either earth or heaven to its resolute working--no stint to the
life-supplies on which it may draw unceasingly. And--'in apprehension
how like a god!' Here the word 'apprehension' is used in the sense of
attaining knowledge,--to learn, or to 'apprehend' wisdom. It means, of
course, that if the Soul's capability of 'apprehending' or learning the
true meaning and use of every fact and circumstance which environs its
existence, were properly perceived and applied, then the 'Image of God'
in which the Creator made humanity, would become the veritable likeness
of the Divine.

But, as this powerful and infinite faculty of apprehension is seldom if
ever rightly understood, and as Man generally concentrates his whole
effort upon ministering to his purely material needs, utterly ignoring
and wilfully refusing to realise those larger claims which are purely
spiritual, he presents the appearance of a maimed and imperfect
object,--a creature who, having strong limbs, declines to use the same,
or who, possessing incalculable wealth, crazily considers himself a
pauper. Jesus Christ, whom we may look upon as a human Incarnation of
Divine Thought, an outcome and expression of the 'Word' or Law of God,
came to teach us our true position in the scale of the great Creative
and Progressive Purpose,--but in the days of His coming men would not
listen,--nor will they listen even now. They say with their mouths, but
they do not believe with their hearts, that He rose from the dead,--and
they cannot understand that, as a matter of fact, He never died, seeing
that death for Him (as for all who have mastered the inward
constitution and commingling of the elements) was impossible. His real
LIFE was not injured or affected by the agony on the Cross, or by His
three days' entombment; the one was a torture to His physical frame,
which to the limited perception of those who watched Him 'die,' as they
thought, appeared like a dissolution of the whole Man,--the other was
the mere rest and silence necessary for what is called the 'miracle' of
the Resurrection, but which was simply the natural rising of the same
Body, the atoms of which were re-invested and made immortal by the
imperishable Spirit which owned and held them in being. The whole life
and so-called 'death' of Christ was and is a great symbolic lesson to
mankind of the infinite power of THAT within us which we call
SOUL,--but which we may perhaps in these scientific days term an
eternal radio-activity,--capable of exhaustless energy and of
readjustment to varying conditions. Life is all Life. There is no such
thing as Death in its composition,--and the intelligent comprehension
of its endless ways and methods of change and expression, is the Secret
of the Universe.

It appears to be generally accepted that we are not to know this
Secret,--that it is too vast and deep for our limited capacities,--and
that even if we did know it, it would be of no use to us, as we are
bound hard and fast by certain natural and elemental laws over which we
have no control. Old truisms are re-stated and violently
asserted--namely, that our business is merely to be born, to live,
breed and arrange things as well as we can for those who come after us,
and then to die, and there an end,--a stupid round of existence not one
whit higher than that of the silkworm. Is it for such a monotonous,
commonplace way of life and purpose as this, that humanity has been
endowed with 'infinite faculty'? Is it for such poor aims and ends as
these that we are told in the legended account of the beginning of
things, to 'Replenish the earth and subdue it'? There is great meaning
in that command--'Subdue it!' The business of each one of us who has
come into the knowledge and possession of his or her own Soul, is to
'subdue' the earth,--that is, to hold it and all it contains under
subjection,--not to allow Its forces, whether interior or exterior, to
subdue the Soul. But it may perhaps be said:--"We do not yet understand
all the forces with which we have to contend, and in this way they
master us." That may be so,--but if it is so with any of you, it is
quite your own fault. Your own fault, I say,--for there is no power,
human or divine, that compels you to remain in ignorance. Each one of
you has a master--talisman and key to all locked doors. No State
education can do for you what you might do for yourselves, if you only
had the WILL. It is your own choice entirely if you elect to live in
subjection to the earth, instead of placing the earth under subjection
to your dominance.

Then, again, you have been told to 'Replenish the earth'--as well as to
subdue it. In these latter days, through a cupidity as amazing as
criminal, you are not 'replenishing' so much as impoverishing the
earth, and think you that no interest will be exacted for your reckless
plunder? You mistake! You complain of the high taxes imposed upon you
by your merely material and ephemeral Governments,--but you forget that
the Everlasting Government of all Worlds demands an even higher rate of
compensation for such wrong or injurious uses as you make of this
world, which was and is intended to serve as a place of training for
the development and perfection of the whole human race, but which,
owing to personal greed and selfishness, is too often turned into a
mere grave for the interment of faulty civilisations.

In studying the psychic side of life it should be well and distinctly
understood that THERE IS AN EVER LIVING SPIRIT WITHIN EACH ONE OF
US;--a Spirit for which there is no limited capacity and no
unfavourable surroundings. Its capacity is infinite as God,--and its
surroundings are always made by Itself. It is its own Heaven,--and once
established within that everlasting centre, it radiates from the Inward
to the Outward, thus making its own environment, not only now but for
ever. It is its own Life,--and in the active work of perpetually
re-generating and re-creating itself, knows nothing of Death.

                         *     *     *
                            *     *
                               *

I must now claim the indulgence of those among my readers who possess
the rare gift of patience, for anything that may seem too personal in
the following statement which I feel it almost necessary to make on the
subject of my own "psychic" creed. I am so often asked if I believe
this or that, if I am "orthodox," if I am a sceptic, materialist or
agnostic, that I should like, if possible, to make things clear between
myself and these enquirers. Therefore I may say at once that my belief
in God and the immortality of the Soul is absolute,--but that I did not
attain to the faith I hold without hard training and bitter suffering.
This need not be dwelt upon, being past. I began to write when I was
too young to know anything of the world's worldly ways, and when I was
too enthusiastic and too much carried away by the splendour and beauty
of the spiritual ideal to realise the inevitable derision and scorn
which are bound to fall upon untried explorers into the mysteries of
the unseen; yet it was solely on account of a strange psychical
experience which chanced to myself when I stood upon the threshold of
what is called 'life' that I found myself producing my first book, "A
Romance of Two Worlds." It was a rash experiment, but it was the direct
result of an initiation into some few of the truths behind the veil of
the Seeming Real. I did not then know why I was selected for such an
'initiation'--and I do not know even now. It arose quite naturally out
of a series of ordinary events which might happen to anyone. I was not
compelled or persuaded into it, for, being alone in the world and more
or less friendless, I had no opportunity to seek advice or assistance
from any person as to the course of life or learning I should pursue.
And I learned what I did learn because of my own unwavering intention
and WILL to be instructed.

I should here perhaps explain the tenor of the instruction which was
gradually imparted to me in just such measures of proportion as I was
found to be receptive. The first thing I was taught was how to bring
every feeling and sense into close union with the spirit of Nature.
Nature, I was told, is the reflection of the working-mind of the
Creator--and any opposition to that working-mind on the part of any
living organism It has created cannot but result in disaster. Pursuing
this line of study, a wonderful vista of perpetual revealment was
opened to me. I saw how humanity, moved by gross egoism, has in every
age of the world ordained laws and morals for itself which are the very
reverse of Nature's teaching--I saw how, instead of helping the wheel
of progress and wisdom onward, man reverses it by his obstinacy and
turns it backward even on the very point of great attainment--and I was
able to perceive how the sorrows and despairs of the world are caused
by this one simple fact--Man working AGAINST Nature--while Nature, ever
divine and invincible, pursues her God-appointed course, sweeping her
puny opponents aside and inflexibly carrying out her will to the end.
And I learned how true it is that if Man went WITH her instead of
AGAINST her, there would be no more misunderstanding of the laws of the
Universe, and that where there is now nothing but discord, all would be
divinest harmony.

My first book, "A Romance of Two Worlds," was an eager, though crude,
attempt to explain and express something of what I myself had studied
on some of these subjects, though, as I have already said, my mind was
unformed and immature, and, therefore, I was not permitted to disclose
more than a glimmering of the light I was beginning to perceive. My own
probation--destined to be a severe one--had only just been entered
upon; and hard and fast limits were imposed on me for a certain time. I
was forbidden, for example, to write of radium, that wonderful
'discovery' of the immediate hour, though it was then, and had been for
a long period, perfectly well known to my instructors, who possessed
all the means of extracting it from substances as yet undreamed of by
latter-day scientists. I was only permitted to hint at it under the
guise of the word 'Electricity'--which, after all, was not so much of a
misnomer, seeing that electric force displays itself in countless
millions of forms. My "Electric Theory of the Universe" in the "Romance
of Two Worlds" foreran the utterance of the scientist who in the
"Hibbert Journal" for January, 1905, wrote as follows:--"The last years
have seen the dawn of a revolution in science as great as that which in
the sphere of religion overthrew the many gods and crowned the One.
Matter, as we have understood it, there is none, nor probably anywhere
the individual atom. The so-called atoms are systems of ELECTRONIC
corpuscles, bound together by their mutual forces too firmly for any
human contrivance completely to sunder them,--alike in their electric
composition, differing only in the rhythms of their motion. ELECTRICITY
is all things, and all things are ELECTRIC."

THIS WAS PRECISELY MY TEACHING IN THE FIRST BOOK I EVER WROTE. I was
ridiculed for it, of course,--and I was told that there was no
'spiritual' force in electricity. I differ from this view; but
'radio-activity' is perhaps the better, because the truer term to
employ in seeking to describe the Germ or Embryo of the Soul, for--as
scientists have proved--"Radium is capable of absorbing from
surrounding bodies SOME UNKNOWN FORM OF ENERGY which it can render
evident as heat and light." This is precisely what the radio-activity
in each individual soul of each individual human being is ordained to
do,--to absorb an 'unknown form of energy which it can render evident
as heat and light.' Heat and Light are the composition of Life;--and
the Life which this radio-activity of Soul generates IN itself and OF
itself, can never die. Or, as I wrote in "A Romance of Two Worlds
"--"Like all flames, this electric (or radiant) spark can either be
fanned into a fire, or allowed to escape in air,--IT CAN NEVER BE
DESTROYED." And again, from the same book: "All the wonders of Nature
are the result of LIGHT AND HEAT ALONE." Paracelsus, as early as about
1526, made guarded mention of the same substance or quality, describing
it thus:--"The more of the humour of life it has, the more of the
spirit of life abounds in that life." Though truly this vital
radio-active force lacks all fitting name. To material science radium,
or radium chloride, is a minute salt crystal, so rare and costly to
obtain that it may be counted as about three thousand times the price
of gold in the market. But of the action of PURE radium, the knowledge
of ordinary scientific students is nil. They know that an infinitely
small spark of radium salt will emit heat and light continuously
without any combustion or change in its own structure. And I would here
quote a passage from a lecture delivered by one of our prominent
scientists in 1904. "Details concerning the behaviour of several
radio-active bodies were detected, as, for example, their activity was
not constant; it gradually grew in strength, BUT THE GROWN PORTION OF
THE ACTIVITY COULD BE BLOWN AWAY, AND THE BLOWN AWAY PART RETAINED ITS
ACTIVITY ONLY FOR A TIME. It decayed in a few days or weeks,--WHEREAS
THE RADIUM ROSE IN STRENGTH AGAIN AT THE SAME RATE THAT THE OTHER
DECAYED. And so on constantly. It was as if a NEW FORM of matter was
constantly being produced, and AS IF THE RADIO-ACTIVITY WAS A
CONCOMITANT OF THE CHANGE OF FORM. It was also found that radium kept
on producing heat de novo so as to keep itself always a fraction of a
degree ABOVE THE SURROUNDING TEMPERATURE; also that it spontaneously
PRODUCED ELECTRICITY."

Does this teach no lesson on the resurrection of the dead? Of the
'blown away part' which decays in a few days or weeks?--of the 'Radia'
or 'Radiance' of the Soul, rising in strength again AT THE SAME RATE
that the other, the Body, or 'grown portion of the activity,' decays?
Of the 'new form of matter' and the 'radio-activity as a concomitant of
the CHANGE OF FORM'? Does not Science here almost unwittingly verify
the words of St. Paul:--"It is sown a natural body; it is raised a
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual
body"? There is nothing impossible or 'miraculous' in such a
consummation, even according to modern material science,--it is merely
the natural action of PURE radio-activity or that etherical composition
for which we have no name, but which we have vaguely called the SOUL
for countless ages.

To multitudes of people this expression 'the Soul' has become
overfamiliar by constant repetition, and conveys little more than the
suggestion of a myth, or the hint of an Imaginary Existence. Now there
is nothing in the whole Universe so REAL as the Vital Germ of the
actual Form and Being of the living, radiant, active Creature within
each one of us,--the creature who, impressed and guided by our Free
Will, works out its own delight or doom. The WILL of each man or woman
is like the compass of a ship,--where it points, the ship goes. If the
needle directs it to the rocks, there is wreck and disaster,--if to the
open sea, there is clear sailing. God leaves the WILL of man at perfect
liberty. His Divine Love neither constrains nor compels. We must
Ourselves learn the ways of Right and Wrong, and having learned, we
must choose. We must injure Ourselves. God will not injure us. We
invite our own miseries. God does not send them. The evils and sorrows
that afflict mankind are of mankind's own making. Even in natural
catastrophes, which ruin cities and devastate countries, it is well to
remember that Nature, which is the MATERIAL EXPRESSION of the mind of
God, will not tolerate too long a burden of human iniquity. Nature
destroys what is putrescent; she covers it up with fresh earth on which
healthier things may find place to grow.

I tried to convey some hint of these truths in my "Romance of Two
Worlds." Some few gave heed,--others wrote to me from all parts of the
world concerning what they called my 'views' on the subjects treated
of,--some asked to be 'initiated' into my 'experience' of the
Unseen,--but many of my correspondents (I say it with regret) were
moved by purely selfish considerations for their own private and
particular advancement, and showed, by the very tone of their letters,
not only an astounding hypocrisy, but also the good opinion they
entertained of their own worthiness, their own capabilities, and their
own great intellectuality, forgetful of the words:--"Except ye become
as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

Now the spirit of a little child is receptive and trustful. It has no
desire for argument, and it is instinctively confident that it will not
be led into unnecessary difficulty or danger by its responsible
guardians. This is the spirit in which, if we are sincere in our
seeking for knowledge, we should and must approach the deeper
psychological mysteries of Nature. But as long as we interpose the
darkness of personal doubt and prejudice between ourselves and the
Light Eternal no progress can be made,--and every attempt to penetrate
into the Holy of Holies will be met and thrust back by that 'flaming
Sword' which from the beginning, as now, turns every way to guard the
Tree of Life.

Knowing this, and seeing that Self was the stumbling-block with most of
my correspondents, I was anxious to write another book at once, also in
the guise of a romance, to serve as a little lamp of love whereby my
readers might haply discover the real character of the obstacle which
blocked their way to an intelligent Soul-advancement. But the publisher
I had at the time (the late Mr. George Bentley) assured me that if I
wrote another 'spiritualistic' book, I should lose the public hearing I
had just gained. I do not know why he had formed this opinion, but as
he was a kindly personal friend, and took a keen interest in my career,
never handing any manuscript of mine over to his 'reader,' but always
reading it himself, I felt it incumbent upon me, as a young beginner,
to accept the advice which I knew could only be given with the very
best intentions towards me. To please him, therefore, and to please the
particular public to which he had introduced me, I wrote something
entirely different,--a melodramatic tale entitled: "Vendetta: The Story
of One Forgotten." The book made a certain stir, and Mr. Bentley next
begged me to try 'a love-story, pur et simple' (I quote from his own
letter). The result was my novel of "Thelma," which achieved a great
popular success and still remains a favourite work with a large
majority of readers. I then considered myself free to move once more
upon the lines which my study of psychic forces had convinced me were
of pre-eminent importance. And moved by a strong conviction that men
and women are hindered from attaining their full heritage of life by
the obstinate interposition of their merely material Selves, I wrote
"Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self." The plan of this book was partially
suggested by the following passages from the Second Apocryphal Book of
Esdras:--

"Go into a field of flowers where no house is builded. And pray unto
the Highest continually, then will I come and talk with thee. So I went
my way into the field which is called Ardath, like as he commanded me,
and there I sat among the flowers."

In this field the Prophet sees the vision of a woman.

"And it came to pass while I was talking with her, behold her face upon
a sudden shined exceedingly and her countenance glistened, so that I
was afraid of her and mused what it might be. And I looked, and behold
the woman appeared unto me no more, but there was a city builded, and a
large place showed itself from the foundations."

On this I raised the fabric of my own "Dream City," and sought to
elucidate some of the meaning of that great text in Ecclesiastes which
contains in itself all the philosophy of the ages: "That which Hath
Been is Now; and that which is To Be hath already Been; and God
requireth that which is Past."

The book, however, so my publisher Mr. Bentley told me in a series of
letters which I still possess, and which show how keen was his own
interest in my work, was 'entirely over the heads of the general
public.' His opinion was, no doubt, correct, as "Ardath" still remains
the least 'popular' of any book I have ever written. Nevertheless it
brought me the unsought and very generous praise of the late Poet
Laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson, as well as the equally unsought good
opinion and personal friendship of the famous statesman, William Ewart
Gladstone, while many of the better-class literary journals vied with
one another in according me an almost enthusiastic eulogy. Such
authorities as the "Athenaeum" and "Spectator" praised the whole
conception and style of the work, the latter journal going as far as to
say that I had beaten Beckford's famous "Vathek" on its own ground.

Whatever may now be the consensus of opinion on its merits or demerits,
I know and feel it to be one of my most worthy attempts, even though it
is not favoured by the million. It does not appeal to anything 'of the
moment' merely, because there are very few people who can or will
understand that if the Soul or 'Radia' of a human being is so forgetful
of its highest origin as to cling to its human Self only (events the
hero of "Ardath" clung to the Shadow of his Former Self and to the
illusory pictures of that Former Self's pleasures and vices and
vanities) then the way to the eternal Happier Progress is barred. There
is yet another intention in this book which seems to be missed by the
casual reader, namely,--That each human soul is a germ of SEPARATE and
INDIVIDUAL spiritual existence. Even as no two leaves are exactly alike
on any tree, and no two blades of grass are precisely similar, so no
two souls resemble each other, but are wholly different, endowed with
different gifts and different capacities. Individuality is strongly
insisted upon in material Nature. And why? Because material Nature is
merely the reflex or mirror of the more strongly insistent
individuality of psychic form. Again, psychic form is generated from a
divinely eternal psychic substance,--a 'radia' or emanation of God's
own Being which, as it progresses onward through endless aeons of
constantly renewed vitality, grows more and more powerful, changing its
shape often, but never its everlasting composition and quality.
Therefore, all the experiences of the 'Soul' or psychic form, from its
first entrance into active consciousness, whether in this world or in
other worlds, are attracted to itself by its own inherent volition, and
work together to make it what it is now and what it will be hereafter.

That is what "Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self" seeks to explain, and I
have nothing to take back from what I have written in its pages. In its
experimental teaching it is the natural and intended sequence of "A
Romance of Two Worlds," and was meant to assist the studies of the many
who had written to me asking for help. And despite the fact that some
of these persons, owing to an inherent incapacity for concentrated
thought upon any subject, found it too 'difficult' as they said, for
casual reading, its reception was sufficiently encouraging to decide me
on continuing to press upon public attention the theories therein set
forth. "The Soul of Lilith" was, therefore, my next venture,--a third
link in the chain I sought to weave between the perishable materialism
of our ordinary conceptions of life, and the undying spiritual quality
of life as it truly is. In this I portrayed the complete failure that
must inevitably result from man's prejudice and intellectual pride when
studying the marvellous mysteries of what I would call the Further
World,--that is to say, the 'Soul' of the world which is hidden deeply
behind its external Appearance,--and how impossible it is and ever must
be that any 'Soul' should visibly manifest itself where there is undue
attachment to the body. The publication of the book was a very
interesting experience. It was and is still less 'popular' than
"Ardath"--but it has been gladly welcomed by a distinctly cultured
minority of persons famous in art, science and literature, whose good
opinion is well worth having. With this reward I was perfectly content,
but my publisher was not so easily pleased. He wanted something that
would 'sell' better. To relieve his impatience, therefore, I wrote a
more or less 'sensational' novel dealing with the absinthe drinkers of
Paris, entitled "Wormwood," which did a certain amount of good in its
way, by helping to call public attention to the devastation wrought by
the use of the pernicious drug among the French and other Continental
peoples--and after this, receiving a strong and almost imperative
impetus towards that particular goal whither my mind was set, I went to
work again with renewed vigour on my own favourite and long studied
line of argument, indifferent alike to publisher or public. Filled with
the fervour of a passionate and proved faith, I wrote "Barabbas: A
Dream of the World's Tragedy,"--and this was the signal of separation
from my excellent old friend, George Bentley, who had not the courage
to publish a poetic romance which introduced, albeit with a tenderness
and reverence unspeakable, so far as my own intention was concerned,
the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. He wrote to me expressing
his opinion in these terms:--"I can conscientiously praise the power
and feeling you exhibit for your vast subject, and the rush and beauty
of the language, and above all I feel that the book is the genuine
outcome of a fervent faith all too rare in these days, but--I fear its
effect on the public mind." Yet, when urged to a given point in the
discussion, he could not deny that 'the effect on the public mind' of
the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau is generally impressive and helpful,
while he was bound to admit that there was something to be said for the
introduction of Divine personages in the epic romances of Milton and
Dante. What could be written in poetic verse did not, however, seem to
him suitable for poetic prose, and I did not waste words in argument,
as I knew the time had come for the parting of the ways. I sought my
present publisher, Mr. Methuen, who, being aware, from a business point
of view, that I had now won a certain reputation, took "Barabbas"
without parley. It met with an almost unprecedented success, not only
in this country but all over the world. Within a few months it was
translated into every known European language, inclusive even of modern
Greek, and nowhere perhaps has it awakened a wider interest than in
India, where it is published in Hindustani, Gujarati, and various other
Eastern dialects. Its notable triumph was achieved despite a hailstorm
of abuse rattled down upon me by the press,--a hailstorm which I,
personally, found welcome and refreshing, inasmuch as it cleared the
air and cleaned the road for my better wayfaring. It released me once
and for all from the trammels of such obligation as is incurred by
praise, and set me firmly on my feet in that complete independence
which to me (and to all who seek what I have found) is a paramount
necessity. For, as Thomas a Kempis writes: "Whosoever neither desires
to please men nor fears to displease them shall enjoy much peace." I
took my freedom gratefully, and ever since that time of unjust and
ill-considered attack from persons who were too malignantly minded to
even read the work they vainly endeavoured to destroy, have been
happily indifferent to all so-called 'criticism' and immune from all
attempts to interrupt my progress or turn me back upon my chosen way.
From henceforth I recognised that no one could hinder or oppose me but
myself--and that I had the making, tinder God, of my own destiny. I
followed up "Barabbas" as quickly as possible by "The Sorrows of
Satan," thus carrying out the preconceived intention I had always had
of depicting, first, the martyrdom which is always the world's guerdon
to Absolute Good,--and secondly, the awful, unimaginable torture which
must, by Divine Law, for ever be the lot of Absolute Evil.

The two books carried their message far and wide with astonishing
success and swiftness, and I then drew some of my threads of former
argument together in "The Master Christian," wherein I depicted Christ
as a Child, visiting our world again as it is to-day and sorrowfully
observing the wickedness which men practise in His Name. This book was
seized upon by thousands of readers in all countries of the world with
an amazing avidity which proved how deep was the longing for some clear
exposition of faith that might console as well as command,--and after
its publication I decided to let it take its own uninterrupted course
for a time and to change my own line of work to lighter themes, lest I
should be set down as 'spiritualist' or 'theosophist,' both of which
terms have been brought into contempt by tricksters. So I played with
my pen, and did my best to entertain the public with stories of
everyday life and love, such as the least instructed could understand,
and that I now allude to the psychological side of my work is merely to
explain that these six books, namely: "A Romance of Two Worlds,"
"Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self," "The Soul of Lilith," "Barabbas,"
"The Sorrows of Satan" and "The Master Christian" ARE THE RESULT OF A
DELIBERATELY CONCEIVED PLAN AND INTENTION, and are all linked together
by the ONE THEORY. They have not been written solely as pieces of
fiction for which I, the author, am paid by the publisher, or you, the
reader, are content to be temporarily entertained,--they are the
outcome of what I myself have learned, practised and proved in the
daily experiences, both small and great, of daily life.

You may probably say and you probably WILL say--"What does that matter
to us? We do not care a jot for your 'experiences'--they are
transcendental and absurd--they bore us to extinction." Nevertheless,
quite callous as you are or may be, there must come a time when pain
and sorrow have you in their grip--when what you call 'death' stands
face to face with you, and when you will find that all you have
thought, desired or planned for your own pleasure, and all that you
possess of material good or advantage, vanishes like smoke, leaving
nothing behind,--when the world will seem no more than a small receding
point from which you must fall into the Unknown--and when that "dread
of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No
traveller returns, PUZZLES THE WILL." You have at present living among
you a great professing scientist, Dr. Oliver Lodge, who, wandering
among mazy infinities, conceives it even possible to communicate with
departed spirits,--while I, who have no such weight of worldly
authority and learning behind me, tell you that such a thing is out of
all natural law and therefore CAN NEVER BE. Nature can and will unveil
to us many mysteries that seem SUPER-natural, when they are only
manifestations of the deepest centre of the purest natural--but nothing
can alter Divine Law, or change the system which has governed the
Universe from the beginning. And by this Divine Law and system we have
to learn that the so-called 'dead' are NOT dead--they have merely been
removed to fresh life and new spheres of action, under which
circumstances they cannot possibly hold communication with us in any
way unless they again assume the human form and human existence. In
this case (which very frequently happens) it takes not only time for us
to know them, but it also demands a certain instinctive receptiveness
on our parts, or willingness to recognise them. Even the risen Saviour
was not at first recognised by His own disciples. It is because I have
been practically convinced of this truth, and because I have learned
that life is not and never can be death, but only constant change and
reinvestment of Spirit into Form, that I have presumed so far as to
allude to my own faith and experience,--a 'personal' touch for which I
readily apologise, knowing that it cannot be interesting to the
majority who would never take the trouble to shape their lives as I
seek to shape mine. Still, if there are one or two out of a million who
feel as I do, that life and love are of little worth if they must end
in dark nothingness, these may perhaps have the patience to come with
me through the pages of a narrative which is neither 'incidental' nor
'sensational' nor anything which should pertain to the modern 'romance'
or 'novel,' and which has been written because the writing of it
enforced itself upon me with an insistence that would take no denial.

Perhaps there will be at least one among those who turn over this book,
who will be sufficiently interested in the psychic--that is to say the
immortal and, therefore, the only REAL side of life--to give a little
undivided attention to the subject. To that one I address myself and
say: Will you, to begin with, drop your burden of preconceived opinions
and prejudices, whatever they are? Will you set aside the small cares
and trifles that affect your own material personality? Will you detach
yourself from your own private and particular surroundings for a space
and agree to THINK with me? Thinking is, I know, the hardest of all
hard tasks to the modern mind. But if you would learn, you must
undertake this trouble. If you would find the path which is made fair
and brilliant by the radiance of the soul's imperishable summer, you
must not grudge time. If I try, no matter how inadequately, to show you
something of the mystic power that makes for happiness, do not shut
your eyes in scorn or languor to the smallest flash of light through
your darkness which may help you to a mastery of the secret.

I say again--Will you THINK with me? Will you, for instance, think of
Life? What is it? Of Death? What is it? What is the primary object of
Living? What is the problem solved by Dying? All these questions should
have answer,--for nothing is without a meaning,--and nothing ever HAS
BEEN, or ever WILL BE, without a purpose?

In this world, apparently, and according to our surface knowledge of
all physical and mental phenomena, it would seem that the chief
business of humanity is to continually re-create itself. Man exists--in
his own opinion--merely to perpetuate Man. All the wonders of the
earth, air, fire and water,--all the sustenance drawn from the teeming
bosom of Nature,--all the progress of countless civilisations in ever
recurring and repeated processional order,--all the sciences old and
new,--are solely to nourish, support, instruct, entertain and furnish
food and employment for the tiny two-legged imp of Chance, spawned (as
he himself asserts) out of gas and atoms.

Yet,--as he personally declares, through the mouth of his modern
science,--he is not of real importance withal. The little planet on
which he dwells would, to all seeming, move on in its orbit in the same
way as it does now, without him. In itself it is a pigmy world compared
with the rest of the solar system of which it is a part. Nevertheless,
the fact cannot be denied that his material surroundings are of a
quality tending to either impress or to deceive Man with a sense of his
own value. The world is his oyster which he, with the sword of
enterprise, will open,--and all his natural instincts urge him to
perpetuate himself in some form or other incessantly and without stint.
Why? Why is his existence judged to be necessary? Why should he not
cease to be? Trees would grow, flowers would bloom, birds would sing,
fish would glide through the rivers and the seas,--the insect and
animal tribes of field and forest would enjoy their existence
unmolested, and the great sun would shine on ever the same, rising at
dawn, sinking at even, with unbroken exactitude and regularity if Man
no longer lived. Why have the monstrous forces of Evolution thundered
their way through cycles of creation to produce so infinitesimal a
prodigy?

Till this question is answered, so long must life seem at its best but
vague and unsatisfactory. So long over all things must brood the shadow
of death made more gloomy by hopeless contemplation. So long must
Creation appear something of a cruel farce, for which peoples and
civilisations come into being merely to be destroyed and leave no
trace. All the work futile,--all the education useless,--all the hope
vain. Only when men and women learn that their lives are not
infinitesimal but infinite--that each of them possesses within himself
or herself an eternal, active, conscious individual Force,--a Being--a
Form--which in its radio-active energy draws to itself and accommodates
to its use, everything that is necessary for the accomplishment of its
endeavours, whether such endeavours be to continue its life on this
planet or to remove to other spheres; only then will it be clearly
understood that all Nature is the subject and servant of this Radiant
Energy--that Itself is the god-like 'image' or emanation of God, and
that as such it has its eternal part to perform in the eternal movement
towards the Eternal Highest.

I now leave the following pages to the reader's attentive or
indifferent consideration. To me, as I have already stated, outside
opinion is of no moment. Personally speaking, I should perhaps have
preferred, had it been possible, to set forth the incidents narrated in
the ensuing 'romance' in the form of separate essays on the nature of
the mystic tuition and experience through which some of us in this
workaday world have the courage to pass successfully, but I know that
the masses of the people who drift restlessly to and fro upon the
surface of this planet, ever seeking for comfort in various forms of
religion and too often finding none, will not listen to any spiritual
truth unless it is conveyed to them, as though they were children, in
the form of a 'story.' I am not the heroine of the tale--though I have
narrated it (more or less as told to me) in the first person singular,
because it seemed to me simpler and more direct. She to whom the
perfect comprehension of happiness has come with an equally perfect
possession of love, is one out of a few who are seeking what she has
found. Many among the world's greatest mystics and philosophers have
tried for the prizes she has won,--for the world possesses Plato, the
Bible and Christ, but in its apparent present ways of living has
learned little or nothing from the three, so that other would-be
teachers may well despair of carrying persuasion where such mighty
predecessors have seemingly failed. The serious and REAL things of life
are nowadays made subjects for derision rather than reverence;--then,
again, there is unhappily an alarmingly increasing majority of
weak-minded and degenerate persons, born of drunken, diseased or
vicious parents, who are mentally unfit for the loftier forms of study,
and in whom the mere act of thought-concentration would be dangerous
and likely to upset their mental balance altogether; while by far the
larger half of the social community seek to avoid the consideration of
anything that is not exactly suited to their tastes. Some of our most
respected social institutions are nothing but so many self-opinionated
and unconscious oppositions to the Law of Nature which is the Law of
God,--and thus it often happens that when obstinate humanity persists
in considering its own ideas of Right and Wrong superior to the Eternal
Decrees which have been visibly presented through Nature since the
earliest dawn of creation, a faulty civilisation sets in and is
presently swept back upon its advancing wheels, and forced to begin
again with primal letters of learning. In the same way a faulty Soul,
an imperfect individual Spirit, is likewise compelled to return to
school and resume the study of the lessons it has failed to put into
practice. Nevertheless, people cannot bear to have it plainly said or
written down, as it has been said and written down over and over again
any time since the world began, that all the corrupt government, wars,
slaveries, plagues, diseases and despairs that afflict humanity are
humanity's own sins taking vengeance upon the sinners, 'even unto the
third and fourth generation.' And this not out of Divine cruelty, but
because of Divine Law which from the first ordained that Evil shall
slay Itself, leaving room only for Good. Men and women alike will
scarce endure to read any book which urges this unalterable fact upon
their attention. They pronounce the author 'arrogant' or 'presuming to
lay down the law';--and they profess to be scandalised by an encounter
with honesty. Nevertheless, the faithful writer of things as they Are
will not be disturbed by the aspect of things as they Seem.

Spirit,--the creative Essence of all that is,--works in various forms,
but always on an ascending plane, and it invariably rejects and
destroys whatever interrupts that onward and upward progress. Being in
Itself the Radiant outflow of the Mind of God, it is the LIFE of the
Universe. And it is very needful to understand and to remember that
there is nothing which can properly be called SUPER-natural, or above
Nature, inasmuch as this Eternal Spirit of Energy is in and throughout
all Nature. Therefore, what to the common mind appears miraculous or
impossible, is nevertheless actually ordinary, and only seems
EXTRA-ordinary to the common mind's lack of knowledge and experience.
The Fountain of Youth and the Elixir of Life were dreams of the ancient
mystics and scientists, but they are not dreams to-day. To the Soul
that has found them they are Divine Realities.

MARIE CORELLI






        "There is no Death,
   What seems so is transition."




I

THE HEROINE BEGINS HER STORY


It is difficult at all times to write or speak of circumstances which
though perfectly at one with Nature appear to be removed from natural
occurrences. Apart from the incredulity with which the narration of
such incidents is received, the mere idea that any one human creature
should be fortunate enough to secure some particular advantage which
others, through their own indolence or indifference, have missed, is
sufficient to excite the envy of the weak or the anger of the ignorant.
In all criticism it is an understood thing that the subject to be
criticised must be UNDER the critic, never above,--that is to say,
never above the critic's ability to comprehend; therefore, as it is
impossible that an outsider should enter at once into a clear
understanding of the mystic Spiritual-Nature world around him, it
follows that the teachings and tenets of that Spiritual-Nature world
must be more or less a closed book to such an one,--a book, moreover,
which he seldom cares or dares to try and open.

In this way and for this reason the Eastern philosophers and sages
concealed much of their most profound knowledge from the multitude,
because they rightly recognised the limitations of narrow minds and
prejudiced opinions. What the fool cannot learn he laughs at, thinking
that by his laughter he shows superiority instead of latent idiocy. And
so it has happened that many of the greatest discoveries of science,
though fully known and realised in the past by the initiated few, were
never disclosed to the many until recent years, when 'wireless
telegraphy' and 'light-rays' are accepted facts, though these very
things were familiar to the Egyptian priests and to that particular
sect known as the 'Hermetic Brethren,' many of whom used the 'violet
ray' for chemical and other purposes ages before the coming of Christ.
Wireless telegraphy was also an ordinary method of communication
between them, and they had their 'stations' for it in high towers on
certain points of land as we have now. But if they had made their
scientific attainments known to the multitude of their day they would
have been judged as impostors or madmen. In the time of Galileo men
would not believe that the earth moved round the sun,--and if anyone
had then declared that messages could be sent from one ship to another
in mid-ocean without any visible means of communication, he would
probably have been put to torture and death as a sorcerer and
deliberate misleader of the public. In the same way those who write of
spiritual truths and the psychic control of our life-forces are as
foolishly criticised as Galileo, and as wrongfully condemned.

For hundreds of years man's vain presumption and belief in his own
infallibility caused him to remain in error concerning the simplest
elements of astronomy, which would have taught him the true position of
the sphere upon which he dwells. With precisely equal obstinacy man
lives to-day in ignorance of his own highest powers because he will not
take the trouble to study the elements of that supreme and
all-commanding mental science which would enable him to understand his
own essential life and being, and the intention of his Creator with
regard to his progress and betterment. Therefore, in the face of his
persistent egotism and effrontery, and his continuous denial of the
'superhuman' (which denial is absurdly incongruous seeing that all his
religions are built up on a 'superhuman' basis), it is generally
necessary for students of psychic mysteries to guard the treasures of
their wisdom from profane and vulgar scorn,--a scorn which amounts in
their eyes to blasphemy. For centuries it has been their custom to
conceal the tenets of their creed from the common knowledge for the
sake of conventions; because they would, or might, be shut out from
such consolations as human social intercourse can give if their
spiritual attainments were found to be, as they often are, beyond the
ordinary. Thus they move through the world with the utmost caution, and
instead of making a display of their powers they, if they are true to
their faith, studiously deny the idea that they have any extraordinary
or separate knowledge. They live as spectators of the progress or decay
of nations, and they have no desire to make disciples, converts or
confidants. They submit to the obligations of life, obey all civil
codes, and are blameless and generous citizens, only preserving silence
in regard to their own private beliefs, and giving the public the
benefit of their acquirements up to a certain point, but shutting out
curiosity where they do not wish its impertinent eyes.

To this, the creed just spoken of, I, the writer of this present
narrative, belong. It has nothing whatever to do with merely human
dogma,--and yet I would have it distinctly understood that I am not
opposed to 'forms' of religion save where they overwhelm religion
itself and allow the Spirit to be utterly lost in the Letter. For 'the
letter killeth,--the spirit giveth life.' So far as a 'form' may make a
way for truth to become manifest, I am with it,--but when it is a mere
Sham or Show, and when human souls are lost rather than saved by it, I
am opposed to it. And with all my deficiencies I am conscious that I
may risk the chance of a lower world's disdain, seeing that the 'higher
world without end' is open to me in its imperishable brightness and
beauty, to live in both NOW, and for ever. No one can cast me out of
that glorious and indestructible Universe, for 'whithersoever I go
there will be the sun and the moon, and the stars and visions and
communion with the gods.'

And so I will fulfil the task allotted to me, and will enter at once
upon my 'story'--in which form I shall endeavour to convey to my
readers certain facts which are as far from fiction as the sayings of
the prophets of old,--sayings that we know have been realised by the
science of to-day. Every great truth has at first been no more than a
dream,--that is to say, a thought, or an instinctive perception of the
Soul reaching after its own immortal heritage. And what the Soul
demands it receives.


                         *     *     *
                            *     *
                               *

At a time of year when the indolent languors of an exceptionally warm
summer disinclined most people for continuous hard work, and when those
who could afford it had left their ordinary avocations for the joys of
a long holiday, I received a pressing invitation from certain persons
whom I had met by chance during one London season, to join them in a
yachting cruise. My intending host was an exceedingly rich man, a
widower with one daughter, a delicate and ailing creature who, had she
been poor, would have been irreverently styled 'a tiresome old maid,'
but who by reason of being a millionaire's sole heiress was alluded to
with sycophantic tenderness by all and sundry as 'Poor Miss Catherine.'
Morton Harland, her father, was in a certain sense notorious for having
written and published a bitter, cold and pitiless attack on religion,
which was the favourite reading of many scholars and literary men, and
this notable performance, together with the well accredited reports of
his almost fabulous wealth, secured for him two social sets,--the one
composed of such human sharks as are accustomed to swim round the
plutocrat,--the other of the cynical, listless, semi-bored portion of a
so-called cultured class who, having grown utterly tired of themselves,
presumed that it was clever to be equally tired of God. I was surprised
that such a man as he was should think of including me among his
guests, for I had scarcely exchanged a dozen words with him, and my
acquaintance with Miss Harland was restricted to a few casual
condolences with her respecting the state of her health. Yet it so
chanced that one of those vague impulses to which we can give no name,
but which often play an important part in the building up of our
life-dramas, moved both father and daughter to a wish for my company.
Moreover, the wish was so strong that though on first receiving their
invitation I had refused it, they repeated it urgently, Morton Harland
himself pressing it upon me with an almost imperative insistence.

"You want rest,"--he said, peering at me narrowly with his small hard
brown eyes--"You work all the time. And to what purpose?"

I smiled.

"To as much purpose as anyone else, I suppose,"--I answered--"But to
put it plainly, I work because I love work."

The lines of his mouth grew harder.

"So did I love work when I was your age,"--he said--"I thought I could
carve out a destiny. So I could. I have done it. But now it's done I'm
tired! I'm sick of my destiny,--the thing I carved out so cleverly,--it
has the stone face of a Sphinx and its eyes are blank and without
meaning."

I was silent. My silence seemed to irritate him, and he gave me a
sharp, enquiring glance.

"Do you hear me?" he demanded--"If you do, I don't believe you
understand!"

"I hear--and I quite understand,"--I replied, quietly, "Your destiny,
as you have made it, is that of a rich man. And you do not care about
it. I think that's quite natural."

He laughed harshly.

"There you are again!" he exclaimed--"Up in the air and riding a theory
like a witch on a broomstick! It's NOT natural. That's just where
you're wrong! It's quite UN-natural. If a man has plenty of money he
ought to be perfectly happy and satisfied,--he can get everything he
wants,--he can move the whole world of commerce and speculation, and
can shake the tree of Fortune so that the apples shall always fall at
his own feet. But if the apples are tasteless there's something wrong."

"Not with the apples," I said.

"Oh, I know what you mean! You would say the fault is with me, not with
Fortune's fruit. You may be right. Catherine says you are. Poor mopish
Catherine!--always ailing, always querulous! Come and cheer her!"

"But"--I ventured to say--"I hardly know her."

"That's true. But she has taken a curious fancy to you. She has very
few fancies nowadays,--none that wealth can gratify. Her life has been
a complete disillusion. If you would do her and me a kindness, come!"

I was a little troubled by his pertinacity. I had never liked Morton
Harland. His reputation, both as a man of wealth and a man of letters,
was to me unenviable. He did no particular good with his money,--and
such literary talent as he possessed he squandered in attacking nobler
ideals than he had ever been able to attain. He was not agreeable to
look at either; his pale, close-shaven face was deeply marked by lines
of avarice and cunning,--his tall, lean figure had an aggressive air in
its very attitude, and his unkind mouth never failed, whether in
speaking or smiling, to express a sneer. Apparently he guessed the
vague tenor of my thoughts, for he went on:--

"Don't be afraid of me! I'm not an ogre, and I shan't eat you! You
think me a disagreeable man--well, so I am. I've had enough in my life
to make me disagreeable. And"--here he paused, passing his hand across
his eyes with a worried and impatient gesture--"I've had an unexpected
blow just lately. The doctors tell me that I have a mortal disease for
which there is no remedy. I may live on for several years, or I may die
suddenly; it's all a matter of care--or chance. I want to forget the
sad news for a while if I can. I've told Catherine, and I suppose I've
added to her usual burden of vapours and melancholy--so we're a couple
of miserable wretches. It's not very unselfish of us to ask you to come
and join us under such circumstances--"

As he spoke my mind suddenly made itself up. I would go. Why not? A
cruise on a magnificent steam yacht, replete with every comfort and
luxury, was surely a fairly pleasant way of taking a holiday, even with
two invalids for company.

"I'm sorry," I said, as gently as I could--"very sorry that you are
ill. Perhaps the doctors may be mistaken. They are not always
infallible. Many of their doomed patients have recovered in spite of
their verdict. And--as you and Miss Harland wish it so much--I will
certainly come."

His frowning face lightened, and for a moment looked almost kind.

"That's right!" he said--"The fresh air and the sea will do you good.
As for ourselves, sickly people though we are, we shall not obtrude our
ailments upon your attention. At least _I_ shall not. Catherine
may--she has got into an unfortunate habit of talking about her aches
and pains, and if her acquaintances have no aches and pains to discuss
with her she is at a loss for conversation. However, we shall do our
best to make the time go easily with you. There will be no other
company on board--except my private secretary and my attendant
physician,--both decent fellows who know their place and keep it."

The hard look settled again in his eyes, and his ugly mouth closed
firmly in its usual cruel line. My subconscious dislike of him gave me
a sharp thrust of regret that, after all, I had accepted his invitation.

"I was going to Scotland for a change,"--I murmured, hesitatingly.

"Were you? Then our plans coincide. We join the yacht at Rothesay--you
can meet us there. I propose a cruise among the Western isles--the
Hebrides--and possibly on to Norway and its fjords. What do you say?"

My heart thrilled with a sudden sense of expectant joy. In my fancy I
already saw the heather-crowned summits of the Highland hills, bathed
in soft climbing mists of amethyst and rose,--the lovely purple light
that dances on the mountain lochs at the sinking of the sun,--the
exquisite beauty of wild moor and rocky foreland,--and almost I was
disposed to think this antipathetic millionaire an angel of blessing in
disguise.

"It will be delightful!" I said, with real fervour--"I shall love it!
I'm glad you are going to keep to northern seas."

"Northern seas are the only seas possible for summer," he
replied--"With the winter one goes south, as a matter of course, though
I'm not sure that it is always advisable. I have found the
Mediterranean tiresome very often." He broke off and seemed to lose
himself for a moment in a tangle of vexed thought. Then he resumed
quickly:--"Well, next week, then. Rothesay bay, and the yacht 'Diana.'"

Things being thus settled, we shook hands and parted. In the interval
between his visit and my departure from home I had plenty to do, and I
heard no more of the Harlands, except that I received a little note
from Miss Catherine expressing her pleasure that I had agreed to
accompany them on their cruise.

"You will be very dull, I fear,"--she wrote, kindly--"But not so dull
as we should be without you."

This was a gracious phrase which meant as much or as little as most
such phrases of a conventionally amiable character. Dulness, however,
is a condition of brain and body of which I am seldom conscious, so
that the suggestion of its possibility did not disturb my outlook.
Having resolved to go, I equally resolved to enjoy the trip to the
utmost limit of my capacity for enjoyment, which--fortunately for
myself--is very great. Before my departure from home I had to listen,
of course, to the usual croaking chorus of acquaintances in the
neighbourhood who were not going yachting and who, according to their
own assertion, never would on any account go yachting. There is a
tendency in many persons to decry every pleasure which they have no
chance of sharing, and this was not lacking among my provincial gossips.

"The weather has been so fine lately that we're sure to have a break
soon,"--said one--"I expect you'll meet gales at sea."

"I hear," said another, "that heavy rains are threatening the west
coast of Scotland."

"Such a bore, yachting!" declared a worthy woman who had never been on
a yacht in her life--"The people on board get sick of each other's
company in a week!"

"Well, you ought to pity me very much, then!"--I said,
laughing--"According to your ideas, a yachting cruise appears to be the
last possible form of physical suffering that can be inflicted on any
human being. But I shall hope to come safely out of it all the same!"

My visitors gave me a wry smile. It was quite easy to see that they
envied what they considered my good fortune in getting a holiday under
the most luxurious circumstances without its costing me a penny. This
was the only view they took of it. It is the only view people generally
take of any situation,--namely, the financial side.

The night before I left home was to me a memorable one. Nothing of any
outward or apparent interest happened, and I was quite alone, yet I was
conscious of a singular elation of both mind and body as though I were
surrounded by a vibrating atmosphere of light and joy. It was an
impression that came upon me suddenly, seeming to have little or
nothing to do with my own identity, yet withal it was still so personal
that I felt eager to praise for such a rich inflow of happiness. The
impression was purely psychic I knew,--but it was worth a thousand
gifts of material good. Nothing seemed sad,--nothing seemed difficult
in the whole Universe--every shadow of trouble seemed swept away from a
shining sky of peace. I threw open the lattice window of my study and
stepping out on the balcony which overhung the garden, I stood there
dreamily looking out upon the night. There was no moon; only a million
quivering points of light flashing from the crowded stars in a heaven
of dusky blue. The air was warm, and fragrant with the sweet scent of
stocks and heliotrope,--there was a great silence, for it was fully
midnight, and not even the drowsy twitter of a bird broke the intense
quiet. The world was asleep--or seemed so--although for fifty living
organisms in Nature that sleep there are a thousand that wake, to whom
night is the working day. I listened,--and fancied I could hear the
delicate murmuring of voices hidden among the leaves and behind the
trees, and the thrill of soft music flowing towards me on the
sound-waves of the air. It was one of those supreme moments when I
almost thought I had made some marked progress towards the attainment
of my highest aims,--when the time I had spent and the patience I had
exercised in cultivating and training what may be called the INWARD
powers of sight and hearing were about to be rewarded by a full opening
to my striving spirit of the gates which had till now been only set
ajar. I knew,--for I had studied and proved the truth,--that every
bodily sense we possess is simply an imperfect outcome of its original
and existent faculty in the Soul,--that our bodily ears are only the
material expressions of that spiritual hearing which is fine and keen
enough to catch the lightest angel whisper,--that our eyes are but the
outward semblance of those brilliant inner orbs of vision which are
made to look upon the supernal glories of Heaven itself without fear or
flinching,--and that our very sense of touch is but a rough and
uncertain handling of perishable things as compared with that sure and
delicate contact of the Soul's personal being with the etheric
substances pertaining to itself. Despite my eager expectation, however,
nothing more was granted to me then but just that exquisite sensation
of pure joy, which like a rain of light bathed every fibre of my being.
It was enough, I told myself--surely enough!--and yet it seemed to me
there should be something more. It was a promise with the fulfilment
close at hand, yet undeclared,--like a snow-white cloud with the sun
behind it. But I was given no solution of the rapturous mystery
surrounding me,--and--granting my soul an absolute freedom, it could
plunge no deeper than through the immensity of stars to immensities
still more profound, there to dream and hope and wait. For years I had
done this,--for years I had worked and prayed, watching the pageant of
poor human pride and vanity drift past me like shadows on the shore of
a dead sea,--succeeding little by little in threading my way through
the closest labyrinths of life, and finding out the beautiful reasons
of living;--and every now and then,--as to-night,--I had felt myself on
the verge of a discovery which in its divine simplicity should make all
problems clear and all difficulties easy, when I had been gently but
firmly held back by a force invisible, and warned, 'Thus far, and no
farther!' To oppose this force or make any personal effort to rebel
against it, is no part of my faith,--therefore at such moments I had
always yielded instantly and obediently as I yielded now. I was not
allowed to fathom the occult source of my happiness, but the happiness
remained,--and when I retired to rest it was with more than ordinary
gratitude that I said my usual brief prayer:--For the day that is past,
I thank Thee, O God my Father! For the night that has come, I thank
Thee! As one with Thee and with Nature I gratefully take the rest Thou
hast lovingly ordained. Whether I sleep or wake my body and soul are
Thine. Do with them as Thou wilt, for Thy command is my joy. Amen.

I slept as soundly and peacefully as a child, and the next day started
on my journey in the brightest of bright summer weather. A friend
travelled with me--one of those amiable women to whom life is always
pleasant because of the pleasantness in their own natures; she had
taken a house for the season in Inverness-shire, and I had arranged to
join her there when my trip with the Harlands was over, or rather, I
should say, when they had grown weary of me and I of them. The latter
chance was, thought my friend, whom I will call Francesca, most likely.

"There's no greater boredom,"--she declared--"than the society of an
imaginative invalid. Such company will not be restful to you,--it will
tire you out. Morton Harland himself may be really ill, as he says--I
shouldn't wonder if he is, for he looks it!--but his daughter has
nothing whatever the matter with her,--except nerves."

"Nerves are bad enough,"--I said.

"Nerves can be conquered,"--she answered, with a bright smile of
wholesome conviction--"Nerves are generally--well!--just selfishness!"

There was some truth in this, but we did not argue the point further.
We were too much engrossed with the interests of our journey north, and
with the entertainment provided for us by our fellow-travellers. The
train for Edinburgh and Glasgow was crowded with men of that particular
social class who find grouse-shooting an intelligent way of using their
brain and muscle, and gun-cases cumbered the ground in every corner. It
wanted yet several days to the famous Twelfth of August, but the
weather was so exceptionally fine and brilliant that the exodus from
town had begun earlier than was actually necessary for the purposes of
slaughter. Francesca and I studied the faces and figures of our
companions with lively and unabated interest. We had a reserved
compartment to ourselves, and from its secluded privacy we watched the
restless pacing up and down in the adjacent corridor of sundry male
creatures who seemed to have nothing whatever to think about but the
day's newspaper, and nothing to do but smoke.

"I am sure," said Francesca, suddenly--"that in the beginning of
creation we were all beasts and birds of prey, eating each other up and
tearing each other to pieces. The love of prey is in us still."

"Not in you, surely?" I queried, with a smile.

"Oh, I am not talking or thinking of myself. I'm just--a woman. So are
you--a woman--and something more, perhaps--something not like the rest
of us." Here her kind eyes regarded me a trifle wistfully. "I can't
quite make you out sometimes,--I wish I could! But--apart from you and
me--look at a few of these men! One has just passed our window who has
the exact physiognomy of a hawk,--cruel eyes and sharp nose like a
voracious beak. Another I noticed a minute ago with a perfectly
pig-like face,--he does not look rightly placed on two legs, his
natural attitude is on four legs, grunting with his snout in the
gutter!"

I laughed.

"You are a severe critic, Francesca!"

"Not I. I'm not criticising at all. But I can't help seeing
resemblances. And sometimes they are quite appalling. Now you, for
instance,"--here she laid a hand tentatively on mine--"you, in your
mysterious ideas of religion, actually believe that persons who lead
evil lives and encourage evil thoughts, descend the scale from which
they have risen and go back to the lowest forms of life--"

"I do believe that certainly"--I answered--"But--"

"'But me no buts,'"--she interrupted--"I tell you there are people in
this world whom I see IN THE VERY ACT OF DESCENDING! And it makes me
grow cold!"

I could well understand her feeling. I had experienced it often.
Nothing has ever filled me with a more hopeless sense of inadequacy and
utter uselessness than to watch, as I am often compelled to watch, the
deplorable results of the determined choice made by certain human
beings to go backward and downward rather than forward and upward,--a
choice in which no outside advice can be of any avail because they will
not take it even if it is offered. It is a life-and-death matter for
their own wills to determine,--and no power, human or divine, can alter
the course they elect to adopt. As well expect that God would revert
His law of gravitation to save the silly suicide who leaps to
destruction from tower or steeple, as that He would change the eternal
working of His higher Spiritual Law to rescue the resolved Soul which,
knowing the difference between good and evil, deliberately prefers
evil. If an angel of light, a veritable 'Son of the Morning' rebels, he
must fall from Heaven. There is no alternative; until of his own
free-will he chooses to rise again.

My friend and I had often talked together on these knotty points which
tangled up what should be the straightness of many a life's career, and
as we mutually knew each other's opinions we did not discuss them at
the moment.

Time passed quickly,--the train rushed farther and farther north, and
by six o'clock on that warm, sunshiny afternoon we were in the grimy
city of Glasgow, from whence we went on to a still grimier quarter,
Greenock, where we put up for the night. The 'best' hotel was a sorry
affair, but we were too tired to mind either a bad dinner or
uncomfortable rooms, and went to bed glad of any place wherein to
sleep. Next morning we woke up very early, refreshed and joyous, in
time to see the sun rise in a warm mist of gold over a huge man-o'-war
outside Greenock harbour,--a sight which, in its way, was very fine and
rather suggestive of a Turner picture.

"Dear old Sol!" said Francesca, shading her eyes as she looked at the
dazzle of glory--"His mission is to sustain life,--and the object of
that war-vessel bathed in all his golden rays is to destroy it. What
unscrupulous villains men are! Why cannot nations resolve on peace and
amity, and if differences arise agree to settle them by arbitration?
It's such a pagan and brutal thing to kill thousands of innocent men
just because Governments quarrel."

"I entirely agree with you,"--I said--"All the same I don't approve of
Governments that preach peace while they drain the people's pockets for
the purpose of increasing armaments, after the German fashion. Let us
be ready with adequate defences,--but it's surely very foolish to
cripple our nation at home by way of preparation for wars which may
never happen."

"And yet they MAY happen!" said Francesca, her eyes still dreamily
watching the sunlit heavens--"Everything in the Universe is engaged in
some sort of a fight, so it seems to me. The tiniest insects are for
ever combating each other. In the very channels of our own blood the
poisonous and non-poisonous germs are constantly striving for the
mastery, and how can we escape the general ordainment? Life itself is a
continual battle between good and evil, and if it were not so we should
have no object in living. The whole business is evidently intended to
be a dose conflict to the end."

"There is no end!" I said.

She looked at me almost compassionately.

"So you imagine!"

I smiled.

"So I KNOW!"

A vague expression flitted over her face,--an expression with which I
had become familiar. She was a most lovable and intelligent creature,
but she could not think very far,--the effort wearied and perplexed her.

"Well, then, it must be an everlasting skirmish, I suppose!" she said,
laughingly,--"I wonder if our souls will ever get tired!"

"Do you think God ever gets tired?" I asked.

She looked startled,--then amused.

"He ought to!" she declared, with vivacity--"I don't mean to be
irreverent, but really, what with all the living things in all the
millions of worlds trying to get what they ought not to have, and
wailing and howling when they are disappointed of their wishes, He
ought to be very, very tired!"

"But He is not,"--I said;--"If He were, there would indeed be an end of
all! Should the Creator be weary of His work, the work would be undone.
I wish we thought of this more often!"

She put her arm round me kindly.

"You are a strange creature!" she said--"You think a great deal too
much of all these abstruse subjects. After all, I'm glad you are going
on this cruise with the Harland people. They will bring you down from
the spheres with a run! They will, I'm sure! You'll hear no
conversation that does not turn on baths, medicines, massage, and
general cure-alls! And when you come on to stay with me in
Inverness-shire you'll be quite commonplace and sensible!"

I smiled. The dear Francesca always associated 'the commonplace and
sensible' together, as though they were fitted to companion each other.
The complete reverse is, of course, the case, for the 'commonplace' is
generally nothing more than the daily routine of body which is
instinctively followed by beasts and birds as equally as by man, and
has no more to do with real 'sense' or pure mentality than the ticking
of a watch has to do with the enormous forces of the sun. What we call
actual 'Sense' is the perception of the Soul,--a perception which
cannot be limited to things which are merely material, inasmuch as it
passes beyond outward needs and appearances and reaches to the causes
which create those outward needs and appearances. I was, however,
satisfied to leave my friend in possession of the field of argument,
the more readily as our parting from each other was so near at hand.

We journeyed together by the steamer 'Columba' to Rothesay, where, on
entering the beautiful bay, crowded at this season with pleasure craft,
the first object which attracted our attention was the very vessel for
which I was bound, the 'Diana,' one of the most magnificent yachts ever
built to gratify the whim of a millionaire. Tourists on board our
steamer at once took up positions where they could obtain the best view
of her, and many were the comments we heard concerning her size and the
beauty of her lines as she rode at anchor on the sunlit water.

"You'll be in a floating palace,"--said Francesca, as we approached
Rothesay pier, and she bade me an affectionate adieu--"Now take care of
yourself, and don't fly away to the moon on what you call an etheric
vibration! Remember, if you get tired of the Harlands to come to me at
once."

I promised, and we parted. On landing at Rothesay I was almost
immediately approached by a sailor from the 'Diana,' who, spying my
name on my luggage, quickly possessed himself of it and told me the
motor launch was in waiting to take me over to the yacht. I was on my
way across the sparkling bay before the 'Columba' started out again
from the pier, and Francesca, standing on the steamer's deck, waved to
me a smiling farewell as I went. In about ten minutes I was on board
the 'Diana,' shaking hands with Morton Harland and his daughter
Catherine, who, wrapped up in shawls on a deck chair, looked as though
she were guarding herself from the chills of a rigorous winter rather
than basking in the warm sunshine of a summer morning.

"You look very well!"--she said, in tones of plaintive amiability--"And
so wonderfully bright!"

"It's such a bright day,"--I answered, feeling as if I ought somehow to
apologise for a healthy appearance, "One can't help being happy!"

She sighed and smiled faintly, and her maid appearing at that moment to
take my travelling bag and wraps, I was shown the cabin, or rather the
state-room which was to be mine during the cruise. It was a luxurious
double apartment, bedroom and sitting-room together, divided only by
the hanging folds of a rich crimson silk curtain, and exquisitely
fitted with white enamelled furniture ornamented with hand-wrought
silver. The bed had no resemblance whatever to a ship's berth, but was
an elaborate full-sized affair, canopied in white silk embroidered with
roses; the carpet was of a thick softness into which my feet sank as
though it were moss, and a tall silver and crystal vase, full of
gorgeous roses, was placed at the foot of a standing mirror framed in
silver, so that the blossoms were reflected double. The sitting-room
was provided with easy chairs, a writing-table, and a small piano, and
here, too, masses of roses showed their fair faces from every corner.
It was all so charming that I could not help uttering an exclamation of
delight, and the maid who was unpacking my things smiled
sympathetically.

"It's perfectly lovely!" I said, turning to her with eagerness--"It's
quite a little fairyland! But isn't this Miss Harland's cabin?"

"Oh dear no, miss,"--she replied--"Miss Harland wouldn't have all these
things about her on any account. There are no carpets or curtains in
Miss Harland's rooms. She thinks them very unhealthy. She has only a
bit of matting on the floor, and an iron bedstead--all very plain. And
as for roses!--she wouldn't have a rose near her for ever so!--she
can't bear the smell of them."

I made no comment. I was too enchanted with my surroundings for the
moment to consider how uncomfortable my hostess chose to make herself.

"Who arranged these rooms?" I asked.

"Mr. Harland gave orders to the steward to make them as pretty as he
could,"--said the maid--"John" and she blushed--"has a lot of taste."

I smiled. I saw at once how matters were between her and "John." Just
then there was a sound of thudding and grinding above my head, and I
realised that we were beginning to weigh anchor. Quickly tying on my
yachting cap and veil, I hurried on deck, and was soon standing beside
my host, who seemed pleased at the alacrity with which I had joined
him, and I watched with feelings of indescribable exhilaration the
'Diana' being loosed from her moorings. Steam was up, and in a very
short time her bowsprit swung round and pointed outward from the bay.
Quivering like an eager race-horse ready to start, she sprang forward;
and then, with a stately sweeping curve, glided across the water,
catting it into bright wavelets with her sword-like keel and churning a
path behind her of opalescent foam. We were off on our voyage of
pleasure at last,--a voyage which the Fates had determined should, for
one adventurer at least, lead to strange regions as yet unexplored. But
no premonitory sign was given to me, or suggestion that I might be the
one chosen to sail 'the perilous seas of fairy lands forlorn'--for in
spiritual things of high import, the soul that is most concerned is
always the least expectant.




II

THE FAIRY SHIP


I was introduced that evening at dinner to Mr. Harland's physician, and
also to his private secretary. I was not greatly prepossessed in favour
of either of these gentlemen. Dr. Brayle was a dark, slim, clean-shaven
man of middle age with expressionless brown eyes and sleek black hair
which was carefully brushed and parted down the middle,--he was quiet
and self-contained in manner, and yet I thought I could see that he was
fully alive to the advantages of his position as travelling medical
adviser to an American millionaire. I have not mentioned till now that
Morton Harland was an American. I was always rather in the habit of
forgetting the fact, as he had long ago forsworn his nationality and
had naturalised himself as a British subject. But he had made his vast
fortune in America, and was still the controlling magnate of many large
financial interests in the States. He was, however, much more English
than American, for he had been educated at Oxford, and as a young man
had been always associated with English society and English ways. He
had married an English wife, who died when their first child, his
daughter, was born, and he was wont to set down all Miss Catherine's
mopish languors to a delicacy inherited from her mother, and to lack of
a mother's care in childhood. In my opinion Catherine was robust
enough, but it was evident that from a very early age she had been
given her own way to the fullest extent, and had been so accustomed to
have every little ailment exaggerated and made the most of that she had
grown to believe health of body and mind as well-nigh impossible to the
human being. Dr. Brayle, I soon perceived, lent himself to this
attitude, and I did not like the covert gleam of his mahogany-coloured
eyes as he glanced rapidly from father to daughter in the pauses of
conversation, watching them as narrowly as a cat might watch a couple
of unwary mice. The secretary, Mr. Swinton, was a pale, precise-looking
young man with a somewhat servile demeanour, under which he concealed
an inordinately good opinion of himself. His ideas were centred in and
bounded by the art of stenography,--he was an adept in shorthand and
typewriting, could jot down, I forget how many crowds of jostling words
a minute, and never made a mistake. He was a clock-work model of
punctuality and dispatch, of respectfulness and obedience,--but he was
no more than a machine,--he could not be moved to a spontaneous
utterance or a spontaneous smile, unless both smile and utterance were
the result of some pleasantness affecting himself. Neither Dr. Brayle
nor Mr. Swinton were men whom one could positively like or
dislike,--they simply had the power of creating an atmosphere in which
my spirit found itself swimming like a gold-fish in a bowl, wondering
how it got in and how it could get out.

As I sat rather silently at table I felt, rather than saw, Dr. Brayle
regarding me with a kind of perplexed curiosity. I was as fully aware
of his sensations as of my own,--I knew that my presence irritated him,
though he was not clever enough to explain even to himself the cause of
his irritation. So far as Mr. Swinton was concerned, he was comfortably
wrapped up in a pachydermatous hide of self-appreciation, so that he
thought nothing about me one way or the other except as a guest of his
patrons, and one therefore to whom he was bound to be civil. But with
Dr. Brayle it was otherwise. I was a puzzle to him, and--after a brief
study of me--an annoyance. He forced himself into conversation with me,
however, and we interchanged a few remarks on the weather and on the
various beauties of the coast along which we had been sailing all day.

"I see that you care very much for fine scenery," he said--"Few women
do."

"Really?" And I smiled. "Is admiration of the beautiful a special
privilege of men only?"

"It should be,"--he answered, with a little bow--"We are the admirers
of your sex."

I made no answer. Mr. Harland looked at me with a somewhat quizzical
air.

"You are not a believer in compliments," he said.

"Was it a compliment?" I asked, laughingly--"I'm afraid I'm very dense!
I did not see that it was meant as one."

Dr. Brayle's dark brows drew together in a slight frown. With that
expression on his face he looked very much like an Italian poisoner of
old time,--the kind of man whom Caesar Borgia might have employed to
give the happy dispatch to his enemies by some sure and undiscoverable
means known only to intricate chemistry.

Presently Mr. Harland spoke again, while he peeled a pear slowly and
delicately with a deft movement of his fruit knife that suggested
cruelty and the flaying alive of some sentient thing.

"Our little friend is of a rather strange disposition," he
observed--"She has the indifference of an old-world philosopher to the
saying of speeches that are merely socially agreeable. She is ardent in
soul, but suspicious in mind! She imagines that a pleasant word may
often be used to cover a treacherous action, and if a man is as rude
and blunt as myself, for example, she prefers that he should be rude
and blunt rather than that he should attempt to conceal his roughness
by an amiability which it is not his nature to feel." Here he looked up
at me from the careful scrutiny of his nearly flayed pear. "Isn't that
so?"

"Certainly,"--I answered--"But that's not a 'strange' or original
attitude of mind."

The corners of his ugly mouth curled satirically.

"Pardon me, dear lady, it is! The normal and strictly reasonable
attitude of the healthy human Pigmy is that It should accept as gospel
all that It is told of a nature soothing and agreeable to Itself. It
should believe, among other things, that It is a very precious Pigmy
among natural forces, destined to be immortal, and to share with Divine
Intelligence the privileges of Heaven. Put out by the merest trifle,
troubled by a spasm, driven almost to howling by a toothache, and
generally helpless in all very aggravated adverse circumstances, It
should still console Itself with the idea that Its being, Its
proportions and perfections are superb enough to draw down Deity into a
human shape as a creature of human necessities in order that It, the
Pigmy, should claim kinship with the Divine now and for ever! What
gorgeous blasphemy in such a scheme!--what magnificent arrogance!" I
was silent, but I could almost hear my heart beating with suppressed
emotion. I knew Morton Harland was an atheist, so far as atheism is
possible to any creature born of spirit as well as matter, but I did
not think he would air his opinions so openly and at once before me the
first evening of my stay on board his yacht. I saw, however, that he
spoke in this way hoping to move me to an answering argument for the
amusement of himself and the other two men present, and therefore I did
what was incumbent upon me to do in such a situation--held my peace.
Dr. Brayle watched me curiously,--and poor Catherine Harland turned her
plaintive eyes upon me full of alarm. She had learned to dread her
father's fondness for starting topics which led to religious
discussions of a somewhat heated nature. But as I did not speak, Mr.
Harland was placed in the embarrassing position of a person propounding
a theory which no one shows any eagerness to accept or to deny, and,
looking slightly confused, he went on in a lighter and more casual way--

"I had a friend once at Oxford,--a wonderful fellow, full of strange
dreams and occult fancies. He was one of those who believed in the
Divine half of man. He used to study curious old books and manuscripts
till long past midnight, and never seemed tired. His father had lived
by choice in some desert corner of Egypt for forty years, and in Egypt
this boy had been born. Of his mother he never spoke. His father died
suddenly and left him a large fortune under trustees till he came of
age, with instructions that he was to be taken to England and educated
at Oxford, and that when he came into possession of his money, he was
to be left free to do as he liked with it. I met him when he was almost
half-way through his University course. I was only two or three years
his senior, but he always looked much younger than I. And he was, as we
all said, 'uncanny '--as uncanny as our little friend,"--here
indicating me by a nod of his head and a smile which was meant to be
kindly--"He never practised or 'trained' for anything and yet all
things came easily to him. He was as magnificent in his sports as he
was in his studies, and I remember--how well I remember it!--that there
came a time at last when we all grew afraid of him. If we saw him
coming along the 'High' we avoided him,--he had something of terror as
well as admiration for us,--and though I was of his college and
constantly thrown into association with him, I soon became infected
with the general scare. One night he stopped me in the quadrangle where
he had his rooms--"

Here Mr. Harland broke off suddenly.

"I'm boring you,"--he said--"I really have no business to inflict the
recollections of my youth upon you."

Dr. Brayle's brown eyes showed a glistening animal interest.

"Pray go on!" he urged--"It sounds like the chapter of a romance."

"I'm not a believer in romance,"--said Mr. Harland, grimly--"Facts are
enough in themselves without any embroidered additions. This fellow was
a Fact,--a healthy, strong, energetic, living Fact. He stopped me in
the quadrangle as I tell you,--and he laid his hand on my shoulder. I
shrank from his touch, and had a restless desire to get away from him.
'What's the matter with you, Harland?' he said, in a grave, musical
voice that was peculiarly his own--'You seem afraid of me. If you are,
the fault is in yourself, not in me!' I shuffled my feet about on the
stone pavement, not knowing what to say--then I stammered out the
foolish excuses young men make when they find themselves in an awkward
corner. He listened to my stammering remarks about 'the other fellows'
with attentive patience,--then he took his hand from my shoulder with a
quick, decisive movement. 'Look here, Harland'--he said--'You are
taking up all the conventions and traditions with which our poor old
Alma Mater is encrusted, and sticking them over you like burrs. They'll
cling, remember! It's a pity you choose this way of going,--I'm
starting at the farther end--where Oxford leaves off and Life begins!'
I suppose I stared--for he went on--'I mean Life that goes
forward,--not Life that goes backward, picking up the stale crumbs
fallen from centuries that have finished their banquet and passed on.
There!--I won't detain you! We shall not meet often--but don't forget
what I have said,--that if you are afraid of me, or of any other man,
or of any existing thing,--the fault is in yourself, not in the persons
or objects you fear.' 'I don't see it,' I blurted out, angrily--'What
of the other fellows? They think you're queer!' He laughed. 'Bless the
other fellows!' he said--'They're with you in the same boat! They think
me queer because THEY are queer--that is,--out of line--themselves.' I
was irritated by his easy indifference and asked him what he meant by
'out of line.' 'Suppose you see a beautiful garden harmoniously
planned,' he said, still smiling, 'and some clumsy fellow comes along
and puts a crooked pigstye up among the flower beds, you would call
that "out of line," wouldn't you? Unsuitable, to say the least of it?'
'Oh!' I said, hotly--'So you consider me and my friends crooked
pigstyes in your landscape?' He made me a gay, half apologetic gesture.
'Something of the type, dear boy!' he said--'But don't worry! The
crooked pigstye is always a most popular kind of building in the world
you will live in!' With that he bade me good-night, and went. I was
very angry with him, for I was a conceited youth and thought myself and
my particular associates the very cream of Oxford,--but he took all the
highest honours that year, and when he finally left the University he
vanished, so to speak, in a blaze of intellectual glory. I have never
seen him again--and never heard of him--and so I suppose his studies
led him nowhere. He must be an elderly man now,--he may be lame, blind,
lunatic, or what is more probable still, he may be dead, and I don't
know why I think of him except that his theories were much the same as
those of our little friend,"--again indicating me by a nod--"He never
cared for agreeable speeches,--always rather mistrusted social
conventions, and believed in a Higher Life after Death."

"Or a Lower,"--I put in, quietly.

"Ah yes! There must be a Down grade, of course, if there is an Up. The
two would be part of each other's existence. But as I accept neither,
the point does not matter."

I looked at him, and I suppose my looks expressed wonder or pity or
both, for he averted his glance from mine.

"You are something of a spiritualist, I believe?"--said Dr. Brayle,
lifting his hard eyes from the scrutiny of the tablecloth and fixing
them upon me.

"Not at all,"--I answered, at once, and with emphasis. "That is, if you
mean by the term 'spiritualist' a credulous person who believes in
mediumistic trickery, automatic writing and the like. That is sheer
nonsense and self-deception."

"Several experienced scientists give these matters considerable
attention,"--suggested Mr. Swinton, primly.

I smiled.

"Science, like everything else, has its borderland," I said--"from
which the brain can easily slip off into chaos. The most approved
scientific professors are liable to this dire end of their
speculations. They forget that in order to understand the Infinite they
must first be sure of the Infinite in themselves."

"You speak like an oracle, fair lady!"--said Mr. Harland--"But despite
your sage utterances Man remains as finite as ever."

"If he chooses the finite state certainly he does,"--I answered--"He is
always what he elects to be."

Mr. Harland seemed desirous of continuing the argument, but I would say
no more. The topic was too serious and sacred with me to allow it to be
lightly discussed by persons whose attitude of mind was distinctly
opposed and antipathetic to all things beyond the merely mundane.

After dinner, Miss Catherine professed herself to be suffering from
neuralgia, and gathering up her shawls and wraps asked me to excuse her
for going to bed early. I bade her good-night, and, leaving my host and
the two other men to their smoke, I went up on deck. We were anchored
off Mull, and against a starlit sky of exceptional clearness the dark
mountains of Morven were outlined with a softness as of black velvet.
The yacht rested on perfectly calm waters, shining like polished
steel,--and the warm stillness of the summer night was deliciously
soothing and restful. Our captain and one or two of the sailors were
about on duty, and I sat in the stern of the vessel looking up into the
glorious heavens. The tapering bow-sprit of the 'Diana' pointed aloft
as it were into a woven web of stars, and I lost myself in imaginary
flight among those glittering unknown worlds, oblivious of my material
surroundings, and forgetting that despite the splendid evidences of a
governing Intelligence in the beauty and order of the Universe spread
about them every day, my companions in the journey of pleasure we were
undertaking together were actually destitute of all faith in God, and
had less perception of the existing Divine than the humblest plant may
possess that instinctively forces its way upward to the light. I did
not think of this,--it was no use thinking about it as I could not
better the position,--but I found myself curiously considering the
story Mr. Harland had told about his college friend at Oxford. I tried
to picture his face and figure till presently it seemed as if I saw
him,--indeed I could have sworn that a man's shadowy form stood
immediately in front of me, bending upon me a searching glance from
eyes that were strangely familiar. Startled at this wraith of my own
fancy, I half rose from my chair--then sank back again with a laugh at
my imagination's too vivid power of portrayal. A figure did certainly
present itself, but one of sufficient bulk to convince me of its
substantiality. This was the captain of the 'Diana,' a cheery-looking
personage of a thoroughly nautical type, who, approaching me, lifted
his cap and said:

"That's a wonderfully fine yacht that has just dropped anchor behind
us. She's illuminated, too. Have you seen her?"

"No," I answered, and turned in the direction he indicated. An
involuntary exclamation escaped me. There, about half a mile to our
rear, floated a schooner of exquisite proportions and fairy-like grace,
outlined from stem to stern by delicate borderings of electric light as
though decorated for some great festival, and making quite a glittering
spectacle in the darkness of the deepening night. We could see active
figures at work on deck--the sails were dropped and quickly
furled,--but the quivering radiance remained running up every tapering
mast and spar, so that the whole vessel seemed drawn on the dusky air
with pencil points of fire. I stood up, gazing at the wonderful sight
in silent amazement and admiration, with the captain beside me, and it
was he who first spoke.

"I can't make her out,"--he said, perplexedly,--"We never heard a sound
except just when she dropped anchor, and that was almost noiseless. How
she came round the point yonder so suddenly is a mystery! I was keeping
a sharp look-out, too."

"Surely she's very large for a sailing vessel?" I queried.

"The largest I've ever seen,"--he replied--"But how did she sail?
That's what I want to know!"

He looked so puzzled that I laughed.

"Well, I suppose in the usual way,"--I said--"With sails."

"Ay, that's all very well!"--and he glanced at me with a compassionate
air as at one who knew nothing about seafaring--"But sails must have
wind, and there hasn't been a capful all the afternoon or evening. Yet
she came in with crowded canvas full out as if there was a regular
sou'wester, and found her anchorage as easy as you please. All in a
minute, too. If there was a wind it wasn't a wind belonging to this
world! Wouldn't Mr. Harland perhaps like to see her?"

I took the hint and ran down into the saloon, which by this time was
full of the stifling odours of smoke and whisky. Mr. Harland was there,
drinking and talking somewhat excitedly with Dr. Brayle, while his
secretary listened and looked on. I explained why I had ventured to
interrupt their conversation, and they accompanied me up on deck. The
strange yacht looked more bewilderingly brilliant than ever, the
heavens having somewhat clouded over, and as we all, the captain
included, leaned over our own deck rail and gazed at her shining
outlines, we heard the sound of delicious music and singing floating
across the quiet sea.

"Some millionaire's toy,"--said Mr. Harland--"She's floating from the
mysterious yacht." It was a music full of haunting sweetness and
rhythmic melody, and I was not sure whether it was evolved from
stringed instruments or singing voices. By climbing up on the sofa in
my sitting-room I could look out through the port-hole on the near sea,
rippling close to me, and bringing, as I fancied, with every ripple a
new cadence, a tenderer snatch of tune. A subtle scent was on the salt
air, as of roses mingling with the freshness of the scarcely moving
waters,--it came, I thought, from the beautiful blossoms which so
lavishly adorned my rooms. I could not see the yacht from my point of
observation, but I could hear the music she had on board, and that was
enough for immediate delight.

Leaving the port-hole open, I lay down on the sofa immediately beneath
it and comprised myself to listen. The soft breath of the sea blew on
my cheeks, and with every breath the delicate vibrations of appealing
harmony rose and fell--it was as if these enchanting sounds were being
played or sung for me alone. In a delicious languor I drowsed, as it
were, with my eyes open,--losing myself in a labyrinth of happy dreams
and fancies which came to me unbidden,--till presently the music died
softly away like a retreating wave and ceased altogether. I waited a
few minutes--listening breathlessly lest it should begin again and I
lose some note of it,--then hearing no more, I softly closed the
port-hole and drew the curtain. I did this with an odd reluctance,
feeling somehow that I had shut out a friend; and I half apologised to
this vague sentiment by reminding myself of the lateness of the hour.
It was nearly midnight. I had intended writing to Francesca,--but I was
now disinclined for anything but rest. The music which had so entranced
me throbbed still in my ears and made my heart beat with a quick sense
of joy,-children--there may be several inoffensive reasons for his
lighting up, and he may think no more of advertisement than you or I."

"That's true,"--assented Dr. Brayle, with a quick concession to his
patron's humour. "But people nowadays do so many queer things for mere
notoriety's sake that it is barely possible to avoid suspecting them.
They will even kill themselves in order to be talked about."

"Fortunately they don't hear what's said of them,"--returned Mr.
Harland--"or they might alter their minds and remain alive. It's hardly
worth while to hang yourself in order to be called a fool!"

While this talk went on I remained silent, watching the illuminated
schooner with absorbed fascination. Suddenly, while I still gazed upon
her, every spark with which she was, as it were, bejewelled, went out,
and only the ordinary lamps common to the watches of the night on board
a vessel at anchorage burned dimly here and there like red winking
eyes. For the rest, she was barely visible save by an indistinct
tracery of blurred black lines. The swiftness with which her brilliancy
had been eclipsed startled us all and drew from Captain Derrick the
remark that it was 'rather queer.'

"What pantomimists call a 'quick change'"--said Mr. Harland, with a
laugh--"The show is over for to-night. Let us turn in. To-morrow
morning we'll try and make acquaintance with the stranger, and find out
for Captain Derrick's comfort how she managed to sail without wind!"

We bade each other good-night then, and descended to our several
quarters.

When I found myself alone in the luxurious state-room 'suite' allotted
to me, the first thing I did was to open one of the port-holes and
listen to the music which still came superbly built,--sailing vessels
are always more elegant than steam, though not half so useful. I expect
she'll lie becalmed here for a day or two."

"It's a wonder she's got round here at all,"--said the captain--"There
wasn't any wind to bring her."

Mr. Harland looked amused.

"There must have been SOME wind, Derrick,"--he answered--"Only it
wasn't boisterous enough for a hardy salt like you to feel it."

"There wasn't a breath,"--declared Derrick, firmly--"Not enough to blow
a baby's curl."

"Then how did she get here?" asked Dr. Brayle.

Captain Derrick's lifted eyebrows expressed his inability to solve the
enigma.

"I said just now if there was a wind it wasn't a wind belonging to this
world--"

Mr. Harland turned upon him quickly.

"Well, there are no winds belonging to other worlds that will ever
disturb OUR atmosphere,"--he said--"Come, come, Derrick, you don't
think that yacht is a ghost, do you?--a sort of 'Flying Dutchman'
spectre?"

Captain Derrick smiled broadly.

"No, sir--I don't! There's flesh and blood aboard--I've seen the men
hauling down canvas, and I know that. But the way she sailed in bothers
me."

"All that electric light is rather ostentatious,"--said Dr. Brayle--"I
suppose the owner wants to advertise his riches."

"That doesn't follow," said Mr. Harland, with some sharpness--"I grant
you we live in an advertising age, but I don't fancy the owner of that
vessel is a Pill or a Plaster or even a Special Tea. He may want to
amuse himself--it may be the birthday of his wife or one of his and a
warm atmosphere of peace and comfort came over me when at last I lay
down in my luxurious bed, and slipped away into the land of sleep. Ah,
what a land it is, that magic Land of Sleep!--a land 'shadowing with
wings,' where amid many shifting and shimmering wonders of darkness and
light, the Palace of Vision stands uplifted, stately and beautiful,
with golden doors set open to the wanderer! I made my entrance there
that night;--often and often as I had been within its enchanted
precincts before, there were a million halls of marvel as yet
unvisited,--and among these I found myself,--under a dome which seemed
of purest crystal lit with fire,--listening to One invisible,
who,--speaking as from a great height, discoursed to me of Love."




III

THE ANGEL OF A DREAM


The Voice that spoke to me was silvery clear, and fell as it were
through the air, dividing space with sweetness. It was soft and
resonant, and the thrill of tenderness within it was as though an angel
sang through tears. Never had I heard anything so divinely pure and
compassionate,--and all my being strove to lift itself towards that
supernal height which seemed to be the hidden source of its melodious
utterance.

"O Soul, wandering in the region of sleep and dreams!" said the
Voice,--"What is all thy searching and labour worth without Love? Why
art thou lost in a Silence without Song?"

I raised my eyes, seeking for the one who thus spoke to me, but could
see nothing.

"In Life's great choral symphony"--the Voice continued--"the keynote of
the dominant melody is Love! Without the keynote there can be no
music,--there is dumbness where there should be sound,--there is
discord where there should be harmony. Love!--the one vibrant tone to
which the whole universe moves in tune,--Love, the breath of God, the
pulsation of His Being, the glory of His work, the fulfilment of His
Eternal Joy,--Love, and Love alone, is the web and texture and garment
of happy Immortality! O Soul that seekest the way to wisdom and to
power, what dost thou make of Love?"

I trembled and stood mute. It seemed that I was surrounded by solemn
Presences whose nearness I could feel but not see, and unknowing who it
was that spoke to me, I was afraid to answer.

"Far in the Past, thousands of ages ago," went on the Voice--"the world
we call the Sorrowful Star was a perfect note in a perfect scale. It
was in tune with the Divine Symphony. But with the sweep of centuries
it has lagged behind; it has fallen from Light into Shadow. And rather
than rise to Light again, it has made of itself a discord opposed to
the eternal Harmony. It has chosen for its keynote Hate,--not Love!
Each nation envies or despises the other,--each man struggles against
his fellow-man and grudges his neighbour every small advantage,--and
more than all, each Creed curses the other, blasphemously calling upon
God to verify and fulfil the curse! Hate, not Love!--this is the false
note struck by the pitiful Earth-world to-day, swinging out of all
concordance with spherical sweetness!--Hate that prefers falsehood to
truth, malice to kindness, selfishness to generosity! O Sorrowful
Star!--doomed so soon to perish!--turn, turn, even in thy last moments,
back to the Divine Ascendant before it is too late!"

I listened,--and a sense of hopeless fear possessed me. I tried to
speak, and a faint whisper crept from my lips. "Why,"--I murmured to
myself, for I did not suppose anyone could or would hear me--"why
should we and our world perish? We knew so little at the beginning, and
we know so little now,--is it altogether our fault if we have lost our
way?"

A silence followed. A vague, impalpable sense of restraint and
captivity seemed closing me in on every side,--I was imprisoned, as I
thought, within invisible walls. Then all at once this density of
atmosphere was struck asunder by a dazzling light as of cloven wings,
but I could see no actual shape or even suggestion of substance--the
glowing rays were all. And the Voice spoke again with grave sweetness
and something of reproach.

"Who speaks of losing the way?" it asked--"when the way is, and has
ever been, clear and plain? Nature teaches it,--Law and Order support
it. Obey and ye shall live: disobey and ye shall die! There is no other
ruling than this out of Chaos! Who is it that speaks of losing the way,
when the way is, and has been and ever shall be, clear and plain?"

I stretched out my hands involuntarily. My eyes filled with tears.

"O Angel invisible!" I prayed--"Forgive my weakness and unwisdom! How
can the world be saved or comforted by a Love it never finds!"

Again a silence. Again that dazzling, quivering radiance, flashing as
in an atmosphere of powdered gold.

"What does the world seek most ardently?" it demanded--"The Love of
God?--or the Love of Self? If it seeks the first, all things in heaven
and earth shall be added to its desire--if the second, all shall be
taken from it, even that which it hath!"

I had, as I thought, no answer to give, but I covered my weeping eyes
with both hands and knelt before the unseen speaker as to some great
Spirit enthroned.

"Love is not Love that loves Itself,"--went on the Voice--"Self is the
Image, not the God. Wouldst thou have Eternal Life? Then find the
secret in Eternal Love!--'Love, which can move worlds and create
universes,--the love of soul for soul, angel for angel, god for god!"

I raised my head, and, uncovering my eyes, looked up. But I could see
nothing save that all-penetrating light which imprisoned me as it were
in a circle of fire.

"Love is that Power which clasps the things of eternity and makes them
all its own,"--said the Voice in stronger tones of deeper music--"It
builds its solar system, its stars, its planets with a thought!--it
wakes all beauty, all delight with a smile!--it lives not only now, but
for ever, in a heaven of pure joy where every thousand years is but one
summer day! To Love there is no time, no space, no age, no death!--what
it gives it receives again,--what it longs for comes to it without
seeking--God withholds nothing from the faithful soul!"

I still knelt, wondering if these words were intended only for me or
for some other listener, for I could not now feel sure that I was
without a companion in this strange experience.

"There is only one Way of Life,"--went on the Voice--"Only one way--the
Way of Love! Whosoever loves greatly lives greatly; whosoever misprizes
Love is dead though living. Give all thy heart and soul to Love if thou
wouldst be immortal!--for without Love thou mayst seek God through all
Eternity and never find Him!"

I waited,--there was a brief silence. Then a sudden wave of music broke
upon my ears,--a breaking foam of rhythmic melody that rose and fell in
a measured cadence of solemn sound. Raising my eyes in fear and awe, I
saw the lambent light around me begin to separate into countless
gradations of delicate colour till presently it resembled a close and
brilliant network of rainbow tints intermingled with purest gold. It
was as if millions of lines had been drawn with exquisite fineness and
precision so as to cause intersection or 'reciprocal meeting' at given
points of calculation, and these changed into various dazzling forms
too brilliant for even my dreaming sight to follow. Yet I felt myself
compelled to study one particular section of these lines which shone
before me in a kind of pale brightness, and while I looked it varied to
more and more complex 'moods' of colour and light, if one might so
express it, till, by gradual degrees, it returned again to the simpler
combination.

"Thus are the destinies of human lives woven and interwoven,"--said the
Voice--"From infinite and endless points of light they grow and part
and mingle together, till the destined two are one. Often they are
entangled and disturbed by influences not their own--but from
interference which through weakness or fear they have themselves
permitted. But the tangle is for ever unravelled by Time,--the parted
threads are brought together again in the eternal weaving of Spirit and
Matter. No power, human or divine, can entirely separate the lives
which God has ordained shall come together. Man's ordainment is not
God's ordainment! Wrong threads in the weaving are broken--no matter
how,--no matter when! Love must be tender yet resolved!--Love must not
swerve from its given pledge!--Love must be All or Nothing!"

The light network of living golden rays still quivered before my eyes,
till all at once they seemed to change to a rippling sea of fine flame
with waves that gently swayed to and fro, tipped with foam-crests of
prismatic hue like broken rainbows. Wave after wave swept forward and
broke in bright amethystine spray close to me where I knelt, and as I
watched this moving mass of radiant colour in absorbed fascination, one
wave, brilliant as the flush of a summer's dawn, rippled towards me,
and then gently retiring, left a single rose, crimson and fragrant,
close within my reach. I stooped and caught it quickly--surely it was a
real rose from some dewy garden of the earth, and no dream!

"One rose from all the roses in Heaven!" said the mystic Voice, in
tones of enthralling sweetness--"One--fadeless and immortal!--only one,
but sufficient for all! One love from all the million loves of men and
women--one, but enough for Eternity! How long the rose has awaited its
flowering,--how long the love has awaited its fulfilment--only the
recording angels know! Such roses bloom but once in the wilderness of
space and time; such love comes but once in a Universe of worlds!"

I listened, trembling; I held the rose against my breast between my
clasped hands.

"O Sorrowful Star!" went on the Voice--"What shall become of thee if
thou forsakest the way of Love! O little Sphere of beauty and delight,
why are thy people so blind! O that their eyes were lifted unto
Heaven!--their hearts to joy!--their souls to love! Who is it that
darkens life with sorrow?--who is it that creates the delusion of
death?"

I found my speech suddenly.

"Nay, surely,"--I said, half whispering--"We must all die!"

"Not so!" and the mystic Voice rang out imperatively--"There is no
death! For God is alive!--and from Him Life only can emanate!"

I held my peace, moved by a sudden sweet awe.

"From Eternal Life no death can come,"--continued the Voice--"from
Eternal Love flows Eternal Joy. Change there is,--change there must be
to higher forms and higher planes,--but Life and Love remain as they
are, indestructible--'the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever!'"

I bent my face over the rose against my breast,--its perfume was
deliciously soft and penetrating, and half unconsciously I kissed its
velvet petals. As I did this a swift and dazzling radiance poured
shower-like through the air, and again I heard mysterious chords of
rhythmic melody rising and falling like distant waves of the sea. The
grave, tender Voice spoke once again:

"Rise and go hence!" it said, in tones of thrilling gentleness--"Keep
the gift God sends thee!--take that which is thine! Meet that which
hath sought thee sorrowing for many centuries! Turn not aside again,
neither by thine own will nor by the will of others, lest old errors
prevail! Pass from vision into waking!--from night to day!--from
seeming death to life!--from loneliness to love!--and keep within thy
heart the message of a Dream!"

The light beating about me like curved wings slowly paled and as slowly
vanished--yet I felt that I must still kneel and wait. This atmosphere
of awe and trembling gradually passed away,--and then, rising as I
thought, and holding the mystic rose with one hand still against my
breast, I turned to feel my way through the darkness which now
encompassed me. As I did this my other hand was caught by someone in a
warm, eager clasp, and I was guided along with an infinitely tender yet
masterful touch which I had no hesitation in obeying. Step by step I
moved with a strange sense of happy reliance on my unseen
companion--darkness or distance had no terrors for me. And as I Went
onward with my hand held firmly in that close yet gentle grasp, my
thoughts became as it were suddenly cleared into a heaven of
comprehension--I looked back upon years of work spread out like an arid
desert uncheered by any spring of sweet water--and I saw all that my
life had lacked--all to which I had unconsciously pressed forward
longingly without any distinct recognition of my own aims, and only
trusting to the infinite powers of God and Nature to amend my
incompleteness by the perfection of the everlasting Whole. And now--had
the answer come? At any rate, I felt I was no longer alone. Someone who
seemed the natural other half of myself was beside me in the shadows of
sleep--I could have spoken, but would not, for fear of breaking the
charm.

And so I went on and on, caring little how long the journey might be,
and even vaguely wishing it might continue for ever,--when presently a
faint light began to peer through the gloom--I saw a glimmer of blue
and grey, then white, then rose-colour--and I awoke--to find nothing of
a visionary character about me unless perhaps a shaft of early morning
sunshine streaming through the port-hole of my cabin could be called a
reflex of the mystic glory which had surrounded me in sleep. I then
remembered where I was,--yet I was so convinced of the reality of what
I had seen and heard that I looked about me everywhere for that lovely
crimson rose I had brought away with me from Dreamland--for I could
actually feel its stem still between my fingers. It was not to be
seen--but there was delicate fragrance on the air as if it were
blooming near me--a fragrance so fine that nothing could describe its
subtly pervading odour. Every word spoken by the Voice of my dream was
vividly impressed on my brain, and more vivid still was the
recollection of the hand that had clasped mine and led me out of sleep
to waking. I was conscious of its warmth yet,--and I was troubled, even
while I was soothed, by the memory of the lingering caress with which
it had been at last withdrawn. And I wondered as I lay for a few
moments in my bed inert, and thinking of all that had chanced to me in
the night, whether the long earnest patience of my soul, ever turned as
it had been for years towards the attainment of a love higher than all
earthly attraction, was now about to be recompensed? I knew, and had
always known, that whatsoever we strongly WILL to possess comes to us
in due season; and that steadily resolved prayers are always granted;
the only drawback to the exertion of this power is the doubt as to
whether the thing we desire so ardently will work us good or ill. For
there is no question but that what we seek we shall find. I had sought
long and unwearyingly for the clue to the secret of life imperishable
and love eternal,--was the mystery about to be unveiled? I could not
tell--and I dare not humour the mere thought too long. Shaking my mind
free from the web of marvel and perplexity in which it had been caught
by the visions of the night, I placed myself in a passively receptive
attitude--demanding nothing, fearing nothing, hoping nothing--but
simply content with actual Life, feeling Life to be the outcome and
expression of perfect Love.




IV

A BUNCH OF HEATHER


It was a glorious morning, and so warm that I went up on deck without
any hat or cloak, glad to have the sunlight playing on my hair and the
soft breeze blowing on my face. The scene was perfectly enchanting; the
mountains were bathed in a delicate rose-purple glow reflected from the
past pomp of the sun's rising,--the water was still as an inland lake,
and every mast and spar of the 'Diana' was reflected in it as in a
mirror. A flock of sea-gulls floated round our vessel, like fairy
boats--some of them rising every now and then with eager cries to wing
their graceful flight high through the calm air, and alight again with
a flash of silver pinions on the translucent blue. While I stood gazing
in absorbed delight at the beauty which everywhere surrounded me,
Captain Derrick called to me from his little bridge, where he stood
with folded arms, looking down.

"Good morning! What do you think of the mystery now?"

"Mystery?" And then his meaning flashed upon me. "Oh, the yacht that
anchored near us last night! Where is she?"

"Just so!" And the captain's look expressed volumes--"Where is she?"

Oddly enough, I had not thought of the stranger vessel till this
moment, though the music sounding from her deck had been the last thing
which had haunted my ears before I had slept--and dreamed! And now--she
was gone! There was not a sign of her anywhere.

I looked up at the captain on his bridge and smiled. "She must have
started very early!" I said.

The captain's fuzzy brows met portentously.

"Ay! Very early! So early that the watch never saw her go. He must have
missed an hour and she must have gained one."

"It's rather strange, isn't it?" I said--"May I come on the bridge?"

"Certainly."

I ran up the little steps and stood beside him, looking out to the
farthest line of sea and sky.

"What do you think about it?" I asked, laughingly, "Was she a real
yacht or a ghost?"

The captain did not smile. His brow was furrowed with perplexed
consideration.

"She wasn't a ghost," he said--"but her ways were ghostly. That is, she
made no noise,--and she sailed without wind. Mr. Harland may say what
he likes,--I stick to that. She had no steam, but she carried full
sail, and she came into the Sound with all her canvas bellying out as
though she were driven by a stormy sou'wester. There's been no wind all
night--yet she's gone, as you see--and not a man on board heard the
weighing of her anchor. When she went and how she went beats me
altogether!"

At that moment we caught sight of a small rowing boat coming out to us
from the shore, pulled by one man, who bent to his oars in a slow,
listless way as though disinclined for the labour.

"Boat ahoy!" shouted the captain.

The man looked up and signalled in answer. A couple of our sailors went
to throw him a rope as he brought his craft alongside. He had come, so
he slowly explained in his soft, slow, almost unintelligible Highland
dialect, with fresh eggs and butter, hoping to effect a sale. The
steward was summoned, and bargaining began. I listened and looked on,
amused and interested, and I presently suggested to the captain that it
might be as well to ask this man if he too had seen the yacht whose
movements appeared so baffling and inexplicable. The captain at once
took the hint.

"Say, Donald," he began, invitingly--"did you see the big yacht that
came in last night about ten o'clock?"

"Ou ay!" was the slow answer--"But my name's no Tonald,--it's just
Jamie."

Captain Derrick laughed jovially.

"Beg pardon! Jamie, then! Did you see the yacht?"

"Ou ay! I've seen her mony a day. She's a real shentleman."

I smiled.

"The yacht?"

Jamie looked up at me.

"Ah, my leddy, ye'll pe makin' a fule o' Jamie wi' a glance like a
sun-sparkle on the sea! Jamie's no fule wi' the right sort, an' the
yacht is a shentleman, an' the shentleman's the yacht, for it's the
shentleman that pays whateffer."

Captain Derrick became keenly interested.

"The gentleman? The owner of the yacht, you mean?"

Jamie nodded--"Just that!"--and proceeded to count out his store of
new-laid eggs with great care as he placed them in the steward's basket.

"What's his name?"

"Ah, that's ower mickle learnin',"--said Jamie, with a cunning look--"I
canna say it rightly."

"Can you say it wrongly?" I suggested.

"I wadna!" he replied, and he lifted his eyes, which were dark and
piercing, to my face--"I daurna!"

"Is he such a very terrible gentleman, then?" enquired Captain Derrick,
jocosely.

Jamie's countenance was impenetrable.

"Ye'll pe seein' her for yourself whateffer,"--he said--"Ye'll no miss
her in the waters 'twixt here an' Skye."

He stooped and fumbled in his basket, presently bringing out of it a
small bunch of pink bell-heather,--the delicate waxen type of blossom
which is found only in mossy, marshy places.

"The shentleman wanted as much as I could find o' this,"--he said--"An'
he had it a' but this wee bittie. Will my leddy wear it for luck?"

I took it from his hand.

"As a gift?" I asked, smiling.

"I wadna tak ony money for't,"--he answered, with a curious expression
of something like fear passing over his brown, weather-beaten
features--"'Tis fairies' making."

I put the little bunch in my dress. As I did so, he doffed his cap.

"Good day t'ye! I'll be no seein' ye this way again!"

"Why not? How do you know?"

"One way in and another way out!" he said, his voice sinking to a sort
of meditative croon--"One road to the West, and the other to the
East!--and round about to the meeting-place! Ou ay! Ye'll mak it clear
sailin'!"

"Without wind, eh?" interposed Captain Derrick--"Like your friend the
'shentleman'? How does he manage that business?"

Jamie looked round with a frightened air, like an animal scenting
danger,--then, shouldering his empty basket, he gave us a hasty nod of
farewell, and, scrambling down the companion ladder without another
word, was soon in his boat again, rowing away steadily and never once
looking back.

"A wild chap!" said the captain--"Many of these fellows get half daft,
living so much alone in desolate places like Mull, and seeing nothing
all their time but cloud and mountain and sea. He seems to know
something about that yacht, though!"

"That yacht is on your brain, Captain!" I said, merrily--"I feel quite
sorry for you! And yet I daresay if we meet her again the mystery will
turn out to be very simple."

"It will have to be either very simple or very complex!" he answered,
with a laugh--"I shall need a good deal of teaching to show me how a
sailing yacht can make steam speed without wind. Ah, good morning, sir!"

And we both turned to greet Mr. Harland, who had just come up on deck.
He looked ill and careworn, as though he had slept badly, and he showed
but faint interest in the tale of the strange yacht's sudden exit.

"It amuses you, doesn't it?"--he said, addressing me with a little
cynical smile wrinkling up his forehead and eyes--"Anything that cannot
be at once explained is always interesting and delightful to a woman!
That is why spiritualistic 'mediums' make money. They do clever tricks
which cannot be explained, hence their success with the credulous."

"Quite so"--I replied--"but just allow me to say that I am no believer
in 'mediums.'"

"True,--I forgot!" He rubbed his hand wearily over his brows--then
asked--"Did you sleep well?"

"Splendidly! And I must really thank you for my lovely rooms,--they are
almost too luxurious! They are fit for a princess."

"Why a princess?" he queried, ironically--"Princesses are not always
agreeable personages. I know one or two,--fat, ugly and stupid. Some of
them are dirty in their persons and in their habits. There are certain
'princesses' in Europe who ought to be washed and disinfected before
being given any rooms anywhere!"

I laughed.

"Oh, you are very bitter!" I said.

"Not at all. I like accuracy. 'Princess' to the ingenuous mind suggests
a fairy tale. I have not an ingenuous mind. I know that the princesses
of the fairy tales do not exist,--unless you are one."

"Me!" I exclaimed, in amazement--"I'm very far from that--"

"Well, you are a dreamer!" he said, and resting his arms on the deck
rail he looked away from me down into the sunlit sea--"You do not live
here in this world with us--you think you do,--and yet in your own mind
you know you do not. You dream--and your life is that of vision simply.
I'm not sure that I should like to see you wake. For as long as you can
dream you will believe in the fairy tale;--the 'princess' of Hans
Andersen and the Brothers Grimm holds good--and that is why you should
have pretty things about you,--music, roses and the like trifles,--to
keep up the delicate delusion."

I was surprised and just a little vexed at his way of talking. Why,
even with the underlying flattery of his words, should he call me a
dreamer? I had worked for my own living as practically as himself in
the world, and if not with such financially successful results, only
because my aims had never been mere money-spinning. He had attained
enormous wealth,--I a modest competence,--he was old and I was
young,--he was ill and miserable,--I was well and happy,--which of us
was the 'dreamer'? My thoughts were busy with this question, and he saw
it.

"Don't perplex yourself,"--he said,--"and don't be offended with me for
my frankness. My view of life is not yours,--nor are we ever likely to
see things from the same standpoint. Yours is the more enviable
condition. You are looking well,--you feel well--you are well! Health
is the best of all things." He paused, and lifting his eyes from the
contemplation of the water, regarded me fixedly. "That's a lovely bit
of bell-heather you're wearing! It glows like fiery topaz."

I explained how it had been given to me.

"Why, then, you've already established a connection with the strange
yacht!" he said, laughing--"The owner, according to your Highland
fellow, has the same blossoms on board,--probably gathered from the
same morass!--surely this is quite romantic and exciting!"

And at breakfast, when Dr. Brayle and Mr. Swinton appeared, they all
made conversation on the subject of my bunch of heather, till I got
rather tired of it, and was half inclined to take it off and throw it
away. Yet somehow I could not do this. Glancing at my own reflection in
a mirror, I saw what a brilliant yet dainty touch of colour it gave to
the plain white serge of my yachting dress,--it was a pretty contrast,
and I left it alone.

Miss Catherine did not get up to breakfast, but she sent for me
afterwards and asked if I would mind sitting with her for a while. I
did mind in a way,--for the day was fair and fine,--the 'Diana' was
preparing to pursue her course,--and it was far pleasanter to be on
deck in the fresh air than in Miss Catherine's state-room, which,
though quite spacious for a yacht's accommodation, looked rather
dreary, having no carpet on the floor, no curtains to the bed, and no
little graces of adornment anywhere,--nothing but a few shelves against
the wall on which were ranged some blue and black medicine bottles,
relieved by a small array of pill-boxes. But I felt sorry for the poor
woman who had elected to make her life a martyrdom to nerves, and real
or imaginary aches and pains, so I went to her, determined to do what I
could to cheer and rouse her from her condition of chronic depression.
Directly I entered her cabin she said:

"Where did you get that bright bit of heather?"

I told her the whole story, to which she listened with more patience
than she usually showed for any talk in which she had not first share.

"It's really quite interesting!" she said, with a reluctant smile--"I
suppose it was the strange yacht that had the music on board last
night. It kept me awake. I thought it was some tiresome person out in a
boat with a gramophone."

I laughed.

"Oh, Miss Harland!" I exclaimed--"Surely you could not have thought it
a gramophone! Such music! It was perfectly exquisite!"

"Was it?" And she drew the ugly grey woollen shawl in which she was
wrapped closer about her sallow throat as she sat up in her bed and
looked at me--"Well, it may have been, to you,--you seem to find
delight in everything,--I'm sure I don't know why! Of course it's very
nice to have such a happy disposition--but really that music teased me
dreadfully. Such a bore having music when you want to go to sleep."

I was silent, and having a piece of embroidery to occupy my hands I
began to work at it.

"I hope you're quite comfortable on board,"--she resumed,
presently--"Have you all you want in your rooms?"

I assured her that everything was perfect.

She sighed.

"I wish I could say the same!" she said--"I really hate yachting, but
father likes it, so I must sacrifice myself." Here she sighed again. I
saw she was really convinced that she was immolating herself on the
altar of filial obedience. "You know he is very ill,"--she went
on--"and that he cannot live long?"

"He told me something about it,"--I answered--"and I said then, as I
say now, that the doctors may be wrong."

"Oh no, they cannot be wrong in his case," she declared, shaking her
head dismally--"They know the symptoms, and they can only avert the end
for a time. I'm very thankful Dr. Brayle was able to come with us on
this trip."

"I suppose he is paid a good deal for his services?" I said.

"Eight hundred guineas"--she answered--"But, you see, he has to leave
his patients in London, and find another man to attend to them during
his absence. He is so very clever and so much sought after--I don't
know what I should do without him, I'm sure!"

"Has he any special treatment for you?" I asked.

"Oh yes,--he gives me electricity. He has a wonderful battery--he has
got it fitted up here in the next cabin--and while I hold two handles
he turns it on and it runs all over me. I feel always better for the
moment--but the effect soon passes."

I looked at her with a smile.

"I should think so! Dear Miss Harland, do you really believe in that
way of administering electricity?"

"Of course I do!" she answered--"You see, it's all a question of what
they call bacteriology nowadays. Medicine is no use unless it can kill
the microbes that are eating us up inside and out. And there's scarcely
any drug that can do that. Electricity is the only remedy. It gives the
little brutes a shock;"--and the poor lady laughed weakly--"and it
kills some, but not all. It's a dreadful scheme of creation, don't you
think, to make human beings no better than happy hunting grounds for
invisible creatures to feed upon?"

"It depends on what view you take of it,"--I said, laying down my work
and trying to fix her attention, a matter which was always
difficult--"We human beings are composed of good and evil particles. If
the good are encouraged, they drive out the evil,--if the evil, they
drive out the good. It's the same with the body as the soul,--if we
encourage the health-working 'microbes' as you call them, they will
drive out disease from the human organism altogether."

She sank back on her pillow wearily.

"We can't do it,"--she said--"All the chances are against us. What's
the use of our trying to encourage 'health-working microbes'? The
disease-working ones have got the upper hand. Just think!--our parents,
grandparents and great-grandparents are to blame for half our evils.
Their diseases become ours in various new forms. It's cruel,--horrible!
How anyone can believe that a God of Love created such a frightful
scheme passes my comprehension! The whole thing is a mere business of
eating to be eaten!"

She looked so wan and wild that I pitied her greatly.

"Surely that is not what you think at the bottom of your heart?" I
said, gently--"I should be very sorry for you if I thought you really
meant what you say."

"Well, you may be as sorry for me as you like"--and the poor lady
blinked away tears from her eyes--"I need someone to be sorry for me! I
tell you my life is a perfect torture. Every day I wonder how long I
can bear it! I have such dreadful thoughts! I picture the horrible
things that are happening to different people all over the world,
nobody helping them or caring for them, and I almost feel as if I must
scream for mercy. It wouldn't be any use screaming,--but the scream is
in my soul all the same. People in prisons, people in shipwrecks,
people dying by inches in hospitals, no good in their lives and no
hope--and not a sign of comfort from the God whom the Churches praise!
It's awful! I don't see how anybody can do anything or be ambitious for
anything--it's all mere waste of energy. One of the reasons that made
me so anxious to have you come on this trip with us is that you always
seem contented and happy,--and I want to know why? It's a question of
temperament, I suppose--but do tell me why!"

She stretched out her hand and touched mine appealingly. I took her
worn and wasted fingers in my own and pressed them sympathetically.

"My dear Miss Harland,"--I began.

"Oh, call me Catherine"--she interrupted--"I'm so tired of being Miss
Harland!"

"Well, Catherine, then,"--I said, smiling a little--"Surely you know
why I am contented and happy?"

"No, I do not,"--she said, with quick, almost querulous? eagerness--"I
don't understand it at all. You have none of the things that please
women. You don't seem to care about dress though you are always
well-gowned--you don't go to balls or theatres or race-meetings,--you
are a general favourite, yet you avoid society,--you've never troubled
yourself to take your chances of marriage,--and so far as I know or
have heard tell about you, you haven't even a lover!"

My cheeks grew suddenly warm. A curious resentment awoke in me at her
words--had I indeed no lover? Surely I had!--one that I knew well and
had known for a long time,--one for whom I had guarded my life sacredly
as belonging to another as well as to myself,--a lover who loved me
beyond all power of human expression,--here the rush of strange and
inexplicable emotion in me was hurled back on my mind with a shock of
mingled terror and surprise from a dead wall of stony fact,--it was
true, of course, and Catherine Harland was right--I had no lover. No
man had ever loved me well enough to be called by such a name. The
flush cooled off my face,--the hurry of my thoughts slackened,--I took
up my embroidery and began to work at it again.

"That is so, isn't it?" persisted Miss Harland--"Though you blush and
grow pale as if there was someone in the background."

I met her inquisitive glance and smiled.

"There is no one,"--I said--"There never has been anyone." I paused; I
could almost feel the warmth of the strong hand that had held mine in
my dream of the past night. It was mere fancy, and I went on--"I should
not care for what modern men and women call love. It seems very
unsatisfactory."

She sighed.

"It is frequently very selfish,"--she said--"I want to tell you my
love-story--may I?"

"Why, of course!" I answered, a little wonderingly, for I had not
thought she had a love-story to tell.

"It's very brief,"--she said, and her lip quivered--"There was a man
who used to visit our house very often when I first came out,--he made
me believe he was very fond of me. I was more than fond of him--I
almost worshipped him. He was all the world to me, and though father
did not like him very much he wished me to be happy, so we were
engaged. That was the time of my life--the only time I ever knew what
happiness was. One evening, just about three months before we were to
be married, we were together at a party in the house of one of our
mutual friends, and I heard him talking rather loudly in a room where
he and two or three other men had gone to smoke. He said something that
made me stand still and wonder whether I was mad or dreaming. 'Pity me
when I'm married to Catherine Harland!' Pity him? I listened,--I knew
it was wrong to listen, but I could not help myself. 'Well, you'll get
enough cash with her to set you all right in the world, anyhow,'--said
another man, 'You can put up with a plain wife for the sake of a pretty
fortune.' Then he,--my love!--spoke again--'Oh, I shall make the best
of it,' he said--'I must have money somehow, and this is the easiest
way. There's one good thing about modern life,--husbands and wives
don't hunt in couples as they used to do, so when once the knot is tied
I shall shift my matrimonial burden off my shoulders as much as I can.
She'll amuse herself with her clothes and the household,--and she's
fond of me, so I shall always have my own way. But it's an awful
martyrdom to have to marry one woman on account of empty pockets when
you're in love with another.' I heard,--and then--I don't know what
happened."

Her eyes stared at me so pitifully that I was full of sorrow for her.

"Oh, you poor Catherine!" I said, and taking her hand, I kissed it
gently. The tears in her eyes brimmed over.

"They found me lying on the floor insensible,"--she went on,
tremulously--"And I was very ill for a long time afterwards. People
could not understand it when I broke off my engagement. I told nobody
why--except HIM. He seemed sorry and a little ashamed,--but I think he
was more vexed at losing my fortune than anything else. I said to him
that I had never thought about being plain,--that the idea of his
loving me had made me feel beautiful. That was true!--my dear, I almost
believe I should have grown into beauty if I had been sure of his love."

I understood that; she was perfectly right in what to the entirely
commonplace person would seem a fanciful theory. Love makes all things
fair, and anyone who is conscious of being tenderly loved grows lovely,
as a rose that is conscious of the sun grows into form and colour.

"Well, it was all over then,"--she ended, with a sigh, "I never was
quite myself again--I think my nerves got a sort of shock such as the
great novelist, Charles Dickens had when he was in the railway
accident--you remember the tale in Forster's 'Life'? How the carriage
hung over the edge of an embankment but did not actually fall,--and
Dickens was clinging on to it all the time. He never got over it, and
it was the remote cause of his death five years later. Now I have felt
just like that,--my life has hung over a sort of chasm ever since I
lost my love, and I only cling on."

"But surely,"--I ventured to say--"surely there are other things to
live for than just the memory of one man's love which was not love at
all! You seem to think there was some cruelty or unhappiness in the
chance that separated you from him,--but really it was a special mercy
and favour of God--only you have taken it in the wrong way."

"I have taken it in the only possible way,"--she said--"With
resignation."

"Oh, do you call it resignation?" I exclaimed--"To make a misery of
what should have been a gladness? Think of the years and years of
wretchedness you might have passed with a man who was a merely selfish
fortune-hunter! You would have had to see him grow colder and more
callous every day--your heart would have been torn, your spirit
broken--and God spared you all this by giving you your chance of
freedom! Such a chance! You might have made much of it, if you had only
chosen!"

She looked at me, but did not speak.

"Love comes to us in a million beautiful ways,"--I went on, heedless of
how she might take my words--"The ordinary love,--or, I would say, the
ordinary mating and marriage is only ONE way. You cannot live in the
world without being loved--if you love!"

She moved on her pillows restlessly.

"I can't see what you mean,"--she said--"How can I love? I have nothing
to love!"

"But do you not see that you are shutting yourself out from love?" I
said--"You will not have it! You bar its approach. You encourage your
sad and morbid fancies, and think of illness when you might just as
well think of health. Oh, I know you will say I am 'up in the air' as
your father expresses it,--but it's true all the same that if you love
everything in Nature--yes, everything!--sunshine, air, cloud, rain,
trees, birds, blossom,--they will love you in return and give you some
of their life and strength and beauty."

She smiled,--a very bitter little smile.

"You talk like a poet,"--she said--"And of all things in the world I
hate poetry! There!--don't think me cross! Go along and be happy in
your own strange fanciful way! I cannot be other than I am,--Dr. Brayle
will tell you that I'm not strong enough to share in other people's
lives and aims and pleasures,--I must always consider myself."

"Dr. Brayle tells you that?" I queried--"To consider yourself?"

"Of course he does. If I had not considered myself every hour and every
day, I should have been dead long ago. I have to consider everything I
eat and drink lest it should make me ill."

I rose from my seat beside her.

"I wish I could cure you!" I murmured.

"My dear girl, if you could, you would, I am sure,"--she answered--"You
are very kind-hearted. It has done me good to talk to you and tell you
all my sad little history. I shall get up presently and have my
electricity and feel quite bright for a time. But as for a cure, you
might as well try to cure my father."

"None are cured of any ailment unless they resolve to help along the
cure themselves," I said.

She gave a weary little laugh.

"Ah, that's one of your pet theories, but it's no use to me! I'm past
all helping of myself, so you may give me up as a bad job!"

"But you asked me," I went on--"did you not, to tell you why it is that
I am contented and happy? Do you really want to know?"

A vague distrust crept into her faded eyes.

"Not if it's a theory!" she said--"I should not have the brain or the
patience to think it out."

I laughed.

"It's not a theory, it's a truth"--I answered--"But truth is sometimes
more difficult than theory."

She looked at me half in wonder, half in appeal.

"Well, what is it?"

"Just this"--and I knelt beside her for a moment holding her hand--"I
KNOW that there are no external surroundings which we do not make for
ourselves, and that our troubles are born of our own wrong thinking,
and are not sent from God. I train my Soul to be calm,--and my body
obeys my Soul. That's all!"

Her fingers closed on mine nervously.

"But what's the use of telling me this?" she half whispered--"I don't
believe in God or the Soul!"

I rose from my kneeling attitude.

"Poor Catherine!" I said--"Then indeed it is no use telling you
anything! You are in darkness instead of daylight, and no one can make
you see. Oh, what can I do to help you?"

"Nothing,"--she answered--"My faith--it was never very much,--was taken
from me altogether when I was quite young. Father made it seem absurd.
He's a clever man, you know--and in a few words he makes out religion
to be utter nonsense."

"I understand!"

And indeed I did entirely understand. Her father was one of a rapidly
increasing class of men who are a danger to the community,--a cold,
cynical shatterer of every noble ideal,--a sneerer at patriotism and
honour,--a deliberate iconoclast of the most callous and remorseless
type. That he had good points in his character was not to be denied,--a
murderer may have these. But to be in his company for very long was to
feel that there is no good in anything--that life is a mistake of
Nature, and death a fortunate ending of the blunder--that God is a
delusion and the 'Soul' a mere expression signifying certain
intelligent movements of the brain only.

I stood silently thinking these things, while she watched me rather
wistfully. Presently she said:

"Are you going on deck now?"

"Yes."

"I'll join you all at luncheon. Don't lose that bit of heather in your
dress,--it's really quite brilliant--like a jewel."

I hesitated a moment.

"You're not vexed with me for speaking as I have done?" I asked her.

"Vexed? No, indeed! I love to hear you and see you defending your own
fairy ground! For it IS like a fairy tale, you know--all that YOU
believe!"

"It has practical results, anyway!"--I answered--"You must admit that."

"Yes--I know,--and it's just what I can't understand. We'll have
another talk about it some day. Would you tell Dr. Brayle that I shall
be ready for him in ten minutes?"

I assented, and left her. I made for the deck directly, the air meeting
me with a rush of salty softness as I ran up the saloon stairway. What
a glorious day it was! Sky, sea and mountains were bathed in brilliant
sunshine; the 'Diana' was cutting her path swiftly through waters which
marked her course on either side by a streak of white foam. I mentally
contrasted the loveliness of the scene around me with the stuffy cabin
I had just left, and seeing Dr. Brayle smoking comfortably in a long
reclining chair and reading a paper I went up to him and touched him on
the shoulder.

"Your patient wants you in ten minutes,"--I said.

He rose to his feet at once, courteously offering me a chair, which I
declined, and drew his cigar from his mouth.

"I have two patients on board,"--he answered, smiling--"Which one?"

"The one who is your patient from choice, not necessity,"--I replied,
coolly.

"My dear lady!" His eyes blinked at me with a furtive astonishment--"If
you were not so charming I should say you were--well!--SHALL I say
it?--a trifle opinionated!"

I laughed.

"Granted!" I said--"If it is opinionated to be honest I plead guilty!
Miss Harland is as well as you or I,--she's only morbid."

"True!--but morbidness is a form of illness,--a malady of the nerves--"

I laughed again, much to his visible annoyance.

"Curable by outward applications of electricity?" I queried--"When the
mischief is in the mind? But there!--I mustn't interfere, I suppose!
Nevertheless you keep Miss Harland ill when she might be quite well."

A disagreeable line furrowed the corners of his mouth.

"You think so? Among your many accomplishments do you count the art of
medicine?"

I met his shifty brown eyes, and he dropped them quickly.

"I know nothing about it,"--I answered--"Except this--that the cure of
any mind trouble must come from within--not from without. And I'm not a
Christian Scientist either?"

He smiled cynically. "Really not? I should have thought you were!"

"You would make a grave error if you thought so," I responded, curtly.

A keen and watchful interest flashed over his dark face.

"I should very much like to know what your theories are"--he said,
suddenly--"You interest me greatly."

"I'm sure I do!" I answered, smiling.

He looked me up and down for a moment in perplexity--then shrugged his
shoulders.

"You are a strange creature!" he said--"I cannot make you out. If I
were asked to give a 'professional' opinion of you I should say you
were very neurotic and highly-strung, and given over to self-delusions."

"Thanks!"--and I made him a demure little curtsy. "I look it, don't I?"

"No--you don't look it; but looks are deceptive."

"There I agree with you,"--I said--"But one has to go by them
sometimes. If I am 'neurotic,' my looks do not pity me, and my
condition of health leaves nothing to desire."

His brows met in a slight frown. He glanced at his watch.

"I must go,"--he said--"Miss Harland will be waiting."

"And the electricity will get cold!" I added, gaily. "See if you can
feel my 'neurotic' pulse!"

He took the hand I extended--and remained quite still. Conscious of the
secret force I had within myself I resolved to try if I could use it
upon him in such a way as to keep him a prisoner till I chose to let
him go. I watched him till his eyes began to look vague and a kind of
fixity settled on his features,--he was perfectly unconscious that I
held him at my pleasure,--and presently, satisfied with my experiment,
I relaxed the spell and withdrew my hand.

"Quite regular, isn't it?" I said, carelessly.

He started as if roused from a sleep, but replied quickly:

"Yes--oh yes--perfectly!--I had almost forgotten what I was doing. I
was thinking of something else. Miss Harland--"

"Yes, Miss Harland is ready for you by this time"--and I smiled. "You
must tell her I detained you."

He nodded in a more or less embarrassed manner, and turning away from
me, went rather slowly down the saloon stairs.

I gave a sigh of relief when he was gone. I had from the first moment
of our meeting recognised in him a mental organisation which in its
godless materialism and indifference to consequences, was opposed to
every healthful influence that might be brought to bear on his patients
for their well-being, whatever his pretensions to medical skill might
be. It was to his advantage to show them the worst side of a disease in
order to accentuate his own cleverness in dealing with it,--it served
his purpose to pamper their darkest imaginings, play with their whims
and humour their caprices,--I saw all this and understood it. And I was
glad that so far as I might be concerned, I had the power to master him.




V

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING


To spend a few days on board a yacht with the same companions is a very
good test of the value of sympathetic vibration in human associations.
I found it so. I might as well have been quite alone on the 'Diana' as
with Morton Harland and his daughter, though they were always uniformly
kind to me and thoughtful of my comfort. But between us there was 'a
great gulf fixed,' though every now and again Catherine Harland made
feeble and pathetic efforts to cross that gulf and reach me where I
stood on the other side. But her strength was not equal to the
task,--her will-power was sapped at its root, and every day she allowed
herself to become more and more pliantly the prey of Dr. Brayle, who,
with a subconscious feeling that I knew him to be a mere medical
charlatan, had naturally warned her against me as an imaginative
theorist without any foundation of belief in my own theories. I
therefore shut myself within a fortress of reserve, and declined to
discuss any point of either religion or science with those for whom the
one was a farce and the other mere materialism. At all times when we
were together I kept the conversation deliberately down to commonplaces
which were safe, if dull,--and it amused me not a little to see that at
this course of action on my part Mr. Harland was first surprised, then
disappointed and finally bored. And I was glad. That I should bore him
as much as he bored me was the happy consummation of my immediate
desires. I talked as all conventional women talk, of the weather, of
our minimum and maximum speed, of the newspaper 'sensations' and
vulgarities that were served up to us whenever we called at a port for
the mails,--of the fish that frequented such and such waters, of sport,
of this and that millionaire whose highland castle or shooting-box was
crammed with the 'elite' whose delight is to kill innocent birds and
animals,--of the latest fool-flyers in aeroplanes,--in short, no
fashionable jabberer of social inanities could have beaten me in what
average persons call 'common-sense talk,'--talk which resulted after a
while in the usual vagueness of attention accompanied by smothered
yawning. I was resolved not to lift the line of thought 'up in the air'
in the manner whereof I had often been accused, but to keep it level
with the ground. So that when we left Tobermory, where we had anchored
for a couple of days, the limits of the yacht were becoming rather
cramped and narrow for our differing minds, and a monotony was
beginning to set in that threatened to be dangerous, if not unbearable.
As the 'Diana' steamed along through the drowsy misty light of the
summer afternoon, past the jagged coast of the mainland, I sat quite by
myself on deck, watching the creeping purple haze that partially veiled
the mountains of Ardnamurchan and Moidart, and I began to wonder
whether after all it might not be better to write to my friend
Francesca and tell her that her prophecies had already come true,--that
I was beginning to be weary of a holiday passed in an atmosphere bereft
of all joyousness, and that she must expect me in Inverness-shire at
once. And yet I was reluctant to end my trip with the Harlands too
soon. There was a secret wish in my heart which I hardly breathed to
myself,--a wish that I might again see the strange vessel that had
appeared and disappeared so suddenly, and make the acquaintance of its
owner. It would surely be an interesting break in the present condition
of things, to say the least of it. I did not know then (though I know
now) why my mind so persistently busied itself with the fancied
personality of the unknown possessor of the mysterious craft which, as
Captain Derrick said, 'sailed without wind,' but I found myself always
thinking about him and trying to picture his face and form.

I took myself sharply to task for what I considered a foolish mental
attitude,--but do what I would, the attitude remained unchanged. It was
helped, perhaps, in a trifling way by the apparently fadeless quality
of the pink bell-heather which had been given me by the weird-looking
Highland fellow who called himself Jamie, for though three or four days
had now passed since I first wore it, it showed no signs of withering.
As a rule the delicate waxen bells of this plant turn yellow a few
hours after they are plucked,--but my little bunch was as brilliantly
fresh as ever. I kept it in a glass without water on the table in my
sitting-room and it looked always the same. I was questioning myself as
to what I should really do if my surroundings remained as hopelessly
inert and uninteresting as they were at present,--go on with the
'Diana' for a while longer on the chance of seeing the strange yacht
again--or make up my mind to get put out at some point from which I
could reach Inverness easily, when Mr. Harland came up suddenly behind
my chair and laid his hand on my shoulder.

"Are you in dreamland?" he enquired--and I thought his voice sounded
rather weak and dispirited--"There's a wonderful light on those hills
just now."

I raised my eyes and saw the purple shadows being cloven and scattered
one after another, by long rays of late sunshine that poured like
golden wine through the dividing wreaths of vapour,--above, the sky was
pure turquoise blue, melting into pale opal and emerald near the line
of the grey sea which showed little flecks of white foam under the
freshening breeze. Bringing my gaze down from the dazzling radiance of
the heavens, I turned towards Mr. Harland and was startled and shocked
to see the drawn and livid pallor of his face and the anguish of his
expression.

"You are ill!" I exclaimed, and springing up in haste I offered him my
chair--"Do sit down!"

He made a mute gesture of denial, and with slow difficulty drew another
chair up beside mine, and dropped into it with an air of heavy
weariness.

"I am not ill now,"--he said--"A little while ago I was very ill. I was
in pain--horrible pain! Brayle did what he could for me--it was not
much. He says I must expect to suffer now and again--until--until the
end."

Impulsively I laid my hand on his.

"I am very sorry!" I said, gently--"I wish I could be of some use to
you!"

He looked at me with a curious wistfulness.

"You could, no doubt, if I believed as you do,"--he replied, and then
was silent for a moment. Presently he spoke again.

"Do you know I am rather disappointed in you?"

"Are you?" And I smiled a little--"Why?"

He did not answer at once. He seemed absorbed in troubled musings. When
he resumed, it was in a low, meditative tone, almost as if he were
speaking to himself.

"When I first met you--you remember?--at one of those social 'crushes'
which make the London season so infinitely tedious,--I was told you
were gifted with unusual psychic power, and that you had in yourself
the secret of an abounding exhaustless vitality. I repeat the words--an
abounding exhaustless vitality. This interested me, because I know that
our modern men and women are mostly only half alive. I heard of you
that it did people good to be in your company,--that your influence
upon them was remarkable, and that there was some unknown form of
occult, or psychic science to which you had devoted years of study,
with the result that you stood, as it were, apart from the world though
in the world. This, I say, is what I heard--"

"But you did not believe it,"--I interposed.

"Why do you say that?" he asked, quickly.

"Because I know you could not believe it,"--I answered--"It would be
impossible for you."

A gleam of satire flashed in his sunken eyes.

"Well, you are right there! I did not believe it. But I expected--"

"I know!" And I laughed--"You expected what is called a 'singular'
woman--one who makes herself 'singular,' adopts a 'singular' pose, and
is altogether removed from ordinary humanity. And of course you are
disappointed. I am not at all a type of the veiled priestess."

"It is not that,"--he said, with a little vexation--"When I saw you I
recognised you to be a very transparent creature, devoted to innocent
dreams which are not life. But that secret which you are reported to
possess--the secret of wonderful abounding exhaustless vitality--how
does it happen that you have it? I myself see that force expressed in
your very glance and gesture, and what puzzles me is that it is not an
animal vitality; it is something else."

I was silent.

"You have not a robust physique,"--he went on--"Yet you are more full
of the spirit of life than men and women twice as strong as you are.
You are a feminine thing, too,--and that goes against you. But one can
see in you a worker--you evidently enjoy the exercise of the
accomplishments you possess--and nothing comes amiss to you. I wonder
how you manage it? When you joined us on this trip a few days ago, you
brought a kind of atmosphere with you that was almost buoyant, and now
I am disappointed, because you seem to have enclosed yourself within
it, and to have left us out!"

"Have you not left yourselves out?" I queried, gently. "I, personally,
have really nothing to do with it. Just remember that when we have
talked on any subject above the line of the general and commonplace
your sole object has been to 'draw' me for the amusement of yourself
and Dr. Brayle--"

"Ah, you saw that, did you?" he interrupted, with a faint smile.

"Naturally! Had you believed half you say you were told of me, you
would have known I must have seen it. Can you wonder that I refuse to
be 'drawn'?"

He looked at me with an odd expression of mingled surprise and
annoyance, and I met his gaze fully and frankly. His eyes shifted
uneasily away from mine.

"One may feel a pardonable curiosity," he said, "And a desire to know--"

"To know what?" I asked, with some warmth--"How can you obtain what you
are secretly craving for, if you persist in denying what is true? You
are afraid of death--yet you invite it by ignoring the source of life!
The curtain is down,--you are outside eternal realities altogether in a
chaos of your own voluntary creation!"

I spoke with some passion, and he heard me patiently.

"Let us try to understand each other," he said, after a pause--"though
it will be difficult. You speak of 'eternal realities.' To me there are
none, save the constant scattering and re-uniting of atoms. These, so
far as we know of the extraordinary (and to me quite unintelligent)
plan of the Universe, are for ever shifting and changing into various
forms and clusters of forms, such as solar systems, planets, comets,
star-dust and the like. Our present view of them is chiefly based on
the researches of Larmor and Thomson of Cambridge. From them and other
scientists we learn that electricity exists in small particles which we
can in a manner see in the 'cathode' rays,--and these particles are
called 'electrons.' These compose 'atoms of matter.' Well!--there are a
trillion of atoms in each granule of dust,--while electrons are so much
smaller, that a hundred thousand of them can lie in the diameter of an
atom. I know all this,--but I do not know why the atoms or electrons
should exist at all, nor what cause there should be for their constant
and often violent state of movement. They apparently always HAVE BEEN,
and always WILL be,--therefore they are all that can be called 'eternal
realities.' Sir Norman Lockyer tells us that the matter of the Universe
is undergoing a continuous process of evolution--but even if it is so,
what is that to me individually? It neither helps nor consoles me for
being one infinitesimal spark in the general conflagration. Now you
believe--"

"In the Force that is BEHIND your system of electrons and atoms"--I
said--"For by whatever means or substances the Universe is composed, a
mighty Intelligence governs it--and I look to the Cause more than the
Effect. For even I am a part of the whole,--I belong to the source of
the stream as much as to the stream itself. An abstract, lifeless
principle without will or intention or intelligence could not have
evolved the splendours of Nature or the intellectual capabilities of
man--it could not have given rise to what was not in itself."

He fixed his eyes steadily upon me.

"That last sentence is sound argument," he said, as though reluctantly
admitting the obvious,--"And I suppose I am to presume that 'Itself' is
the well-spring from which you draw, or imagine you draw, your psychic
force?"

"If I have any psychic force at all," I responded,--"where do you
suppose it should come from but that which gives vitality to all
animate Nature? I cannot understand why you blind yourself to the open
and visible fact of a Divine Intelligence working in and through all
things. If you could but acknowledge it and set yourself in tune with
it you would find life a new and far more dominant joy than it is to
you now. I firmly believe that your very illness has arisen from your
determined attitude of unbelief."

"That's what a Christian Scientist would say," he answered, with a
touch of scorn,--"I begin to think Dr. Brayle is right in his estimate
of you."

I held my peace.

"Have you no curiosity?" he demanded--"Don't you want to know his
opinion?"

"No,"--and I smiled--"My dear Mr. Harland, with all your experience of
the world, has it never occurred to you that there are some people
whose opinions don't matter?"

"Brayle is a clever man,"--he said, somewhat testily, "And you are
merely an imaginative woman."

"Then why do you trouble about me?" I asked him, quickly--"Why do you
want to find out that something in me which baffles both Dr. Brayle and
yourself?"

It was now his turn to be silent, and he remained so for some time, his
eyes fixed on the shadowing heavens. The waves were roughening slightly
and a swell from the Atlantic lifted the 'Diana' curtsying over their
foam-flecked crests as she ploughed her way swiftly along. Presently he
turned to me with a smile.

"Let us strike a truce!"--he said--"I promise not to try and 'draw' you
any more! But please do not isolate yourself from us,--try to feel that
we are your friends. I want you to enjoy this trip if possible,--but I
fear that we are proving rather dull company for you. We are making for
Skye at good speed and shall probably anchor in Loch Scavaig to-night.
To-morrow we might land and do the excursion to Loch Coruisk if you
care for that, though Catherine is not a good walker."

I felt rather remorseful as he said these words in a kindly tone. Yet I
knew very well that, notwithstanding all the strenuous efforts which
might be made by the rules of conventional courtesy, it would be
impossible for me to feel quite at home in the surroundings which he
had created for himself. I inwardly resolved, however, to make the best
of it and to try and steer clear of any possibilities or incidents
which might tend to draw the line of demarcation too strongly between
us. Some instinct told me that present conditions were not to remain as
they were, so I answered my host gently and assured him of my entire
willingness to fall in with any of his plans. Our conversation then
gradually drifted into ordinary topics till towards sunset, when I went
down to my cabin to dress for dinner. I had a fancy to wear the bunch
of pink bell-heather that still kept its fresh and waxen-looking
delicacy of bloom, and this, fastened in the lace of my white gown, was
my only adornment.

That night there was a distinct attempt on everybody's part to make
things sociable and pleasant. Catherine Harland was, for once, quite
cheerful and chatty, and proposed that as there was a lovely moonlight,
we should all go after dinner into the deck saloon, where there was a
piano, and that I should sing for them. I was rather surprised at this
suggestion, as she was not fond of music. Nevertheless, there had been
such an evident wish shown by her and her father to lighten the
monotony which had been creeping like a mental fog over us all that I
readily agreed to anything which might perhaps for the moment give them
pleasure.

We went up on deck accordingly, and on arriving there were all smitten
into awed silence by the wonderful beauty of the scene. We were
anchored in Loch Scavaig--and the light of the moon fell with a weird
splendour on the gloom of the surrounding hills, a pale beam touching
the summits here and there and deepening the solemn effect of the lake
and the magnificent forms of its sentinel mountains. A low murmur of
hidden streams sounded on the deep stillness and enhanced the
fascination of the surrounding landscape, which was more like the
landscape of a dream than a reality. The deep breadths of dense
darkness lying lost among the cavernous slopes of the hills were broken
at intervals by strange rifts of light arising as it were from the
palpitating water, which now and again showed gleams of pale emerald
and gold phosphorescence,--the stars looked large and white like
straying bits of the moon, and the mysterious 'swishing' of slow
ripples heaving against the sides of the yacht suggested the
whisperings of uncanny spirits. We stood in a silent group, entranced
by the grandeur of the night and by our own loneliness in the midst of
it, for there was no sign of a fisherman's hut or boat moored to the
shore, or anything which could give us a sense of human companionship.
A curious feeling of disappointment suddenly came over me,--I lifted my
eyes to the vast dark sky with a kind of mute appeal--and moon and
stars appeared to float up there like ships in a deep sea,--I had
expected something more in this strange, almost spectral-looking
landscape, and yet I knew not why I should expect anything. Beautiful
as the whole scene was, and fully as I recognised its beauty, an
overpowering depression suddenly gripped me as with a cold hand,--there
was a dreary emptiness in this majestic solitude that seemed to crush
my spirit utterly.

I moved a little away from my companions, and leaned over the deck
rail, looking far into the black shadows of the shore, defined more
deeply by the contrasting brilliance of the moon, and my thoughts flew
with undesired swiftness to the darkest line of life's horizon--I had
for the moment lost the sense of joy. How wretched all we human
creatures are!--I said to my inner self,--what hope after all is there
for us, imprisoned in a world which has no pity for us whatever may be
our fate,--a world that goes on in precisely the same fashion whether
we live or die, work or are idle? These tragic hills, this cold lake,
this white moon, were the same when Caesar lived, and would still be
the same when we who gazed upon them now were all gone into the
Unknown. It seemed difficult to try and realise this obvious fact--so
difficult as to be almost unnatural. Supposing that any towns or
villages had ever existed on this desolate shore, they had proved
useless against the devouring forces of Nature,--just as the splendid
buried cities of South America had proved useless in all their
magnificence,--useless as the 'Golden Age of Lanka' in Ceylon more than
two thousand years ago. Of what avail then is the struggle of human
life? Is it for the many or only for the few? Is all the toil and
sorrow of millions merely for the uplifting and perfecting of certain
individual types, and is this what Christ meant when He said 'Many are
called but few are chosen'? If so, why such waste of brain and heart
and love and patience? Tears came suddenly into my eyes and I started
as from a bad dream when Dr. Brayle approached me softly from behind.

"I am sorry to disturb your reverie!"--he said--"But Miss Harland has
gone into the deck saloon and we are all waiting to hear you sing."

I looked up at him.

"I don't feel as if I could sing to-night,"--I replied, rather
tremulously--"This lonely landscape depresses me--"

He saw that my eyes were wet, and smiled.

"You are overwrought," he said--"Your own theories of health and
vitality are not infallible! You must be taken care of. You think too
much."

"Or too little?" I suggested.

"Really, my dear lady, you cannot possibly think too little where
health and happiness are concerned! The sanest and most comfortable
people on earth are those who eat well and never think at all. An empty
brain and a full stomach make the sum total of a contented life."

"So YOU imagine!" I said, with a slight gesture of veiled contempt.

"So I KNOW!" he answered, with emphasis--"And I have had a wide
experience. Now don't look daggers at me!--come and sing!"

He offered me his arm, but I put it aside and walked by myself towards
the deck saloon. Mr. Harland and Catherine were seated there, with all
the lights turned full on, so that the radiance of the moon through the
window was completely eclipsed. The piano was open. As I came in
Catherine looked at me with a surprised air.

"Why, how pale you are!" she exclaimed--"One would think you had seen a
ghost!"

I laughed.

"Perhaps I have! Loch Scavaig is sufficient setting for any amount of
ghosts. It's such a lonely place,"--and a slight tremor ran through me
as I played a few soft chords--"What shall I sing to you?"

"Something of the country we are in,"--said Mr. Harland--"Don't you
know any of those old wild Gaelic airs?"

I thought a moment, and then to a low rippling accompaniment I sang the
old Celtic 'Fairy's Love Song'--

    "Why should I sit and sigh,
     Pu'in' bracken, pu'in' bracken,
     Why should I sit and sigh,
     On the hill-side dreary--
     When I see the plover rising,
     Or the curlew wheeling,
     Then I know my mortal lover
     Back to me is stealing.

     When the day wears away
     Sad I look adown the valley,
     Every sound heard around
     Sets my heart a-thrilling,--
     Why should I sit and sigh,
     Pu'in' bracken, pu'in' bracken,
     Why should I sit and sigh
     All alone and weary!

     Ah, but there is something wanting,
     Oh but I am weary!
     Come, my true and tender lover,
     O'er the hills to cheer me!
     Why should I sit and sigh,
     Pu'in' bracken, pu'in' bracken,
     Why should I sit and sigh,
     All alone and weary!"

I had scarcely finished the last verse when Captain Derrick suddenly
appeared at the door of the saloon in a great state of excitement.

"Come out, Mr. Harland!" he almost shouted--"Come quickly, all of you!
There's that strange yacht again!"

I rose from my seat at the piano trembling a little--at last!--I
thought--at last! My heart was beating tumultuously, though I could not
explain my own emotion to myself. In another moment we were all
standing speechless and amazed, gazing at surely the most wonderful
sight that had ever been seen by human eyes. There on the dark and
lonely waters of Loch Scavaig was poised, rather than anchored, the
fairy vessel of my dreams, with all sails spread,--sails that were
white as milk and seemingly drenched with a sparkling dewy radiance,
for they scintillated like hoar-frost in the sun and glittered against
the sombre background of the mountainous shore with an almost blinding
splendour. Our whole crew of sailors and servants on the 'Diana' came
together in astonished groups, whispering among themselves, all
evidently more or less scared by the strange spectacle. Captain Derrick
waited for someone to hazard a remark, then, as we remained silent, he
addressed Mr. Harland--

"Well, sir, what do you make of it?"

Mr. Harland did not answer. For a man who professed indifference to all
events and circumstances he seemed startled for once and a little
afraid. Catherine caught me by the arm,--she was shivering nervously.

"Do you think it is a REAL yacht?" she whispered.

I was amused at this question, coming as it did from a woman who denied
the supernatural.

"Of course it is!" I answered--"Don't you see people moving about on
board?"

For, in the brilliant light shed by those extraordinary sails, the
schooner appeared to be fully manned. Several of the crew were busy on
her deck and there was nothing of the phantom in their movements.

"Her sails must surely be lit up in that way by electricity"--said Dr.
Brayle, who had been watching her attentively--"But how it is done and
why, is rather puzzling! I never saw anything quite to resemble it."

"She came into the loch like a flash,"--said Captain Derrick--"I saw
her slide in round the point, and then without a sound of any kind,
there she was, safe anchored before you could whistle. She behaved in
just the same way when we first sighted her off Mull."

I listened to what they were saying, impatiently wondering what would
be the end of their surmises and speculations.

"Why not exchange courtesies?" I said, suddenly,--"Here we are--two
yachts anchored near each other in a lonely lake,--why should we not
know each other? Then all the mysteries you are talking about would be
cleared up."

"Quite true!" said Mr. Harland, breaking his silence at last--"But
isn't it rather late to pay a call? What time is it?"

"About half-past ten,"--answered Dr. Brayle, glancing at his watch.

"Oh, let us get to bed!" murmured Miss Catherine, pleadingly--"What's
the good of making any enquiries to-night?"

"Well, if you don't make them to-night ten to one you won't have the
chance to-morrow!"--said Captain Derrick, bluntly--"That yacht will
repeat her former manoeuvres and vanish at sunrise."

"As all spectres are traditionally supposed to do!" said Dr. Brayle,
lighting a cigarette as he spoke and beginning to smoke it with a
careless air--"I vote for catching the ghost before it melts away into
the morning."

While this talk went on Mr. Harland stepped back into the saloon and
wrote a note which he enclosed in a sealed envelope. With this in his
hand he came out to us again.

"Captain, will you get the boat lowered, please?" he said--then, as
Captain Derrick hastened to obey this order, he turned to his
secretary:--"Mr. Swinton, I want you to take this note to the owner of
that yacht, whoever he may be, with my compliments. Don't give it to
anyone else but himself."

Mr. Swinton, looking very pale and uncomfortable, took the note
gingerly between his fingers.

"Himself--yes!"--he stammered--"And--er--if there should be no one--"

"What do you mean?" and Mr. Harland frowned in his own particularly
unpleasant way--"There's sure to be SOMEONE, even if he were the devil!
You can say to him that the ladies of our party are very much
interested in the beautiful illumination of his yacht, and that we'll
be glad to see him on board ours, if he cares to come. Be as polite as
you can, and as agreeable as you like."

"It has not occurred to you--I suppose you have not thought--that--that
it may be an illusion?" faltered Mr. Swinton, uneasily, glancing at the
glistening sails that shamed the silver sheen of the moon--"A sort of
mirage in the atmosphere--"

Mr. Harland gave vent to a laugh--the heartiest I had ever heard from
him.

"Upon my word, Swinton!" he exclaimed--"I should never have thought you
capable of nerves! Come, come!--be off with you! The boat is
lowered--all's ready!"

Thus commanded, there was nothing for the reluctant Mr. Swinton but to
obey, and I could not help smiling at his evident discomfiture. All his
precise and matter-of-fact self-satisfaction was gone in a moment,--he
was nothing but a very timorous creature, afraid to examine into what
he could not at once understand. No such terrors, however, were
displayed by the sailors who undertook to row him over to the yacht.
They, as well as their captain, were anxious to discover the mystery,
if mystery there was,--and we all, by one instinct, pressed to the
gangway as he descended the companion ladder and entered the boat,
which glided away immediately with a low and rhythmical plash of oars.
We could watch it as it drew nearer and nearer the illuminated vessel,
and our excitement grew more and more intense. For once Mr. Harland and
his daughter had forgotten all about themselves,--and Catherine's
customary miserable expression of face had altogether disappeared in
the keenness of her interest for something more immediately thrilling
than her own ailments. So far as I was concerned, I could hardly endure
the suspense that seemed to weigh on every nerve of my body during the
few minutes' interval that elapsed between the departure of the boat
and its drawing up alongside the strange yacht. My thoughts were all in
a whirl,--I felt as if something unprecedented and almost terrifying
was about to happen,--but I could not reason out the cause of my mental
agitation.

"There they go!" said Mr. Harland--"They're alongside! See!--those
fellows are lowering the companion ladder--there's nothing supernatural
about THEM! Swinton's all right--look, he's on board!"

We strained our eyes through the brilliant flare shed by the
illuminated sails on the darkness and could see Mr. Swinton talking to
a group of sailors. One of them went away, but returned almost
immediately, followed by a man clad in white yachting flannels, who,
standing near one of the shining sails, caught some of the light on his
own figure with undeniably becoming effect. I was the first to perceive
him, and as I looked, the impression came upon me that he was no
stranger,--I had seen him often before. This sudden consciousness
swiftly borne in upon me calmed all the previous tumult of my mind and
I was no longer anxious as to the result of our possible acquaintance.
Catherine Harland pressed my arm excitedly.

"There he is!" she said--"That must be the owner of the yacht. He's
reading father's letter."

He was,--we could see the little sheet of paper turning over in his
hands. And while we waited, wondering what would be his answer, the
light on the sails of his vessel began to pale and die away,--beam
after beam of radiance slipped off as it were like drops of water, and
before we could quite realise it there was darkness where all had
lately been so bright; and the canvas was hauled down. With the
quenching of that intense brilliancy we lost sight of the human figures
on deck and could not imagine what was to happen next. The dark shore
looked darker than ever,--the outline of the yacht was now truly
spectral, like a ship of black cobweb against the moon, and we looked
questioningly at each other in silence. Then Mr. Harland spoke in a low
tone.

"The boat is coming back,"--he said,--"I hear the oars."

I leaned over the side of our vessel and tried to see through the
gloom. How still the water was!--not a ripple disturbed its surface.
But there were strange gleams of wandering light in its depths like
dropped jewels lost on sands far below. The regular dip of oars sounded
nearer and nearer. My heart was beating with painful quickness,--I
could not understand the strange feeling that overpowered me. I felt as
if my very soul were going out of my body to meet that oncoming boat
which was cleaving its way through the darkness. Another brief interval
and then we saw it shoot out into a patch of moonlight--we could
perceive Mr. Swinton seated in the stern with another figure beside
him--that of a man who stood up as he neared our yacht and lifted his
cap with an easy gesture of salutation, and then as the boat came
alongside, caught at the guide rope and sprang lightly on the first
step of the companion ladder.

"Why, he's actually come over to us himself!" ejaculated Mr.
Harland,--and he hurried to the gangway just in time to receive the
visitor as he stepped on deck.

"Well, Harland, how are you?" said a mellow voice in the cheeriest of
accents--"It's strange we should meet like this after so many years!"




VI

RECOGNITION


At these words and at sight of the speaker, Morton Harland started back
as if he had been shot.

"Santoris!" he exclaimed--"Not possible! Rafel Santoris! No! You must
be his son!"

The stranger laughed.

"My good Harland! Always the sceptic! Miracles are many, but there is
one which is beyond all performance. A man cannot be his own offspring!
I am that very Santoris who saw you last in Oxford. Come, come!--you
ought to know me!"

He stepped more fully into the light which was shed from the open door
of the deck saloon, and showed himself to be a man of distinguished
appearance, apparently about forty years of age. He was well built,
with the straight back and broad shoulders of an athlete,--his face was
finely featured and radiant with the glow of health and strength, and
as he smiled and laid one hand on Mr. Harland's shoulder he looked the
very embodiment of active, powerful manhood. Morton Harland stared at
him in amazement and something of terror.

"Rafel Santoris!" he repeated--"You are his living image,--but you
cannot be himself--you are too young!"

A gleam of amusement sparkled in the stranger's eyes.

"Don't let us talk of age or youth for the moment"--he said. "Here I
am,--your 'eccentric' college acquaintance whom you and several other
fellows fought shy of years ago! I assure you I am quite harmless! Will
you present me to the ladies?"

There was a brief embarrassed pause. Then Mr. Harland turned to us
where we had withdrawn ourselves a little apart and addressed his
daughter.

"Catherine,"--he said--"This gentleman tells me he knew me at Oxford,
and if he is right I also knew HIM. I spoke of him only the other night
at dinner--you remember?--but I did not tell you his name. It is Rafel
Santoris--if indeed he IS Santoris!--though my Santoris should be a
much older man."

"I extremely regret," said our visitor then, advancing and bowing
courteously to Catherine and myself--"that I do not fulfil the required
conditions of age! Will you try to forgive me?"

He smiled--and we were a little confused, hardly knowing what to say.
Involuntarily I raised my eyes to his, and with one glance saw in those
clear blue orbs that so steadfastly met mine a world of
memories--memories tender, wistful and pathetic, entangled as in tears
and fire. All the inward instincts of my spirit told me that I knew him
well--as well as one knows the gold of the sunshine or the colour of
the sky,--yet where had I seen him often and often before? While my
thoughts puzzled over this question he averted his gaze from mine and
went on speaking to Catherine.

"I understand," he said--"that you are interested in the lighting of my
yacht?"

"It is most beautiful and wonderful,"--answered Catherine, in her
coldest tone of conventional politeness, "And so unusual!"

His eyebrows went up with a slightly quizzical.

"Yes, I suppose it is unusual," he said--"I am always forgetting that
what is not quite common seems strange! But really the arrangement is
very simple. The yacht is called the 'Dream'--and she is, as her name
implies, a 'dream' fulfilled. Her sails are her only motive power. They
are charged with electricity, and that is why they shine at night in a
way that must seem to outsiders like a special illumination. If you
will honour me with a visit to-morrow I will show you how it is
managed."

Here Captain Derrick, who had been standing close by, was unable to
resist the impulse of his curiosity.

"Excuse me, sir,"--he said, suddenly--"but may I ask how it is you sail
without wind?"

"Certainly!--you may ask and be answered!" Santoris replied. "As I have
just said, our sails are our only motive power, but we do not need the
wind to fill them. By a very simple scientific method, or rather let me
say by a scientific application of natural means, we generate a form of
electric force from the air and water as we move. This force fills the
sails and propels the vessel with amazing swiftness wherever she is
steered. Neither calm nor storm affects her progress. When there is a
good gale blowing our way, we naturally lessen the draft on our own
supplies--but we can make excellent speed even in the teeth of a
contrary wind. We escape all the inconveniences of steam and smoke and
dirt and noise,--and I daresay in about a couple of hundred years or so
my method of sailing the seas will be applied to all ships large and
small, with much wonder that it was not thought of long ago."

"Why not apply it yourself?" asked Dr. Brayle, now joining in the
conversation for the first time and putting the question with an air of
incredulous amusement--"With such a marvellous discovery--if it is
yours--you should make your fortune!"

Santoris glanced him over with polite tolerance.

"It is possible I do not need to make it,"--he answered, then turning
again to Captain Derrick he said, kindly, "I hope the matter seems
clearer to you? We sail without wind, it is true, but not without the
power that creates wind."

The captain shook his head perplexedly.

"Well, sir, I can't quite take it in,"--he confessed--"I'd like to know
more."

"So you shall! Harland, will you all come over to the yacht to-morrow?
There may be some excursion we could do together--and you might remain
and dine with me afterwards."

Mr. Harland's face was a study. Doubt and fear struggled for the
mastery in his expression and he did not at once answer. Then he seemed
to conquer his hesitation and to recover himself.

"Give me a moment with you alone,"--he said, with a gesture of
invitation towards the deck saloon.

Our visitor readily complied with this suggestion, and the two men
entered the saloon together and closed the door.

Silence followed. Catherine looked at me in questioning
bewilderment,--then she called to Mr. Swinton, who had been standing
about as though awaiting orders in his usual tiresome and servile way.

"What sort of an interview did you have with that gentleman when you
got on board his yacht?" she asked.

"Very pleasant--very pleasant indeed"--he replied--"The vessel is
magnificently appointed. I have never seen such luxury. Extraordinary!
More than princely! Mr. Santoris himself I found particularly
agreeable. When he had read Mr. Harland's note, he said he was glad to
find it was from an old college companion, and that he would come over
with me to renew the acquaintance. As he has done."

"You were not afraid of him, then?" queried Dr. Brayle, sarcastically.

"Oh dear no! He seems quite well-bred, and I should say he must be very
wealthy."

"A most powerful recommendation!" murmured Brayle--"The best in the
world! 

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