VISHNUGUPTA, THE PRIEST
The sun had set, and that lovely rose-lilac glow, which, for a few
moments of the evening, makes the skies of the East so entrancingly
beautiful, was wrapping heaven and earth in its mystical radiance,
when Tom, having finished his day's work, returned to the palace. A
syce took Snow-queen, and he went in thoughtfully to his own rooms,
wondering if he ought to ask to see Grace, or if it would be better to
wait until the following day.
It may be as well to say here that, in the intervals for quiet thought
which the business of the day had permitted him, he had made up his
mind fully as to his course of action. There should be no repetition
of the mistakes of the past. That one outpouring of heart, drawn from
him by Grace's anguish of spirit, he could forgive himself. Until he
had heard from General or Lady Elton, there should be nothing more of
the same kind. He owed it to her, and to their mutual relations--she,
a fugitive in his city, a guest in his house: he, the one to whom the
honour and happiness of saving her had been granted--to set a seal on
the door of his lips, for the present. He owed it to the future--to the
position which it was his dearest hope and desire she might one day
occupy--to do nothing in a corner, or without the consent and approval
of her friends.
But none the less for his prudent resolve to hold himself in check, was
his desire to see her and hear her voice.
As he was thinking about these things, Hoosanee came to meet him
with a message from the English ladies. They had sent to know if his
Excellency the rajah would do them the honour of joining them at their
evening meal. He smiled at the punctiliousness of the invitation,
answered it with a ready assent, and, about half-an-hour later, found
himself on the marble staircase that led up to the pillared hall of the
zenana.
A little to his surprise, he saw that the hall was empty, and he was
about to throw himself down on one of the settees and wait, when a
murmur of voices from the daïs, which was hidden by a screen of palms
and lilies from the body of the hall, attracted his attention. He
went on to the foot of the steps that led up to it, and there stopped
for a moment, half paralysed with surprise. As a picture nothing could
have been more beautiful and striking than the scene upon which his
eyes rested. The ladies were to dine on the daïs, and the centre of
its space was occupied by a table, where flowers and rich tropical
fruits and sweetmeats, with sparkling glass and silver, were laid out
on snowy linen. At the head of the table, on a low couch, draped with
embroidered stuffs, a figure that seemed to concentrate upon itself all
the light in the room was reclining. It was that of a woman, dressed
in a loose robe of white and gold. Her head, from which the veil had
fallen back, was propped up on a little hand, so delicate in its
blue-veined transparency that the burden seemed to be too heavy for it;
her pale face, overspread at this moment by a faint tinge of colour,
looked out from its halo of golden hair, with the purity and stillness
of a saint in a mediæval altar-piece, and her lips were moving in low,
impassioned words that throbbed through the silence like a prayer.
Meanwhile, at a little distance from the couch, his large hands with
their curiously knotted joints clasped round his knees, and his dark,
strongly-marked face lit by deep eyes which shone with a dreamy light
turned meditatively towards hers, sat a figure so different that it
might have been placed there for a foil.
But it was not this that made the half-unconscious watcher start and
pause, and feel, for a moment, as if his senses had been playing
him a trick. It was that in the difference there was a likeness.
In the solemn fire that seemed to kindle these two faces, in their
meditativeness, in their dreamy enthusiasm, there was something which
brought them together. Vishnugupta, the proud Indian mystic, and the
simple English girl who had looked the King of Terrors in the face,
and, for the sake of another, had vanquished him, met that night on a
common ground of sympathy.
"Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow
Together, tempering the repugnant mass
With liquid love----"
The words sprang to his mind as he gazed. He went forward, and the
spell was broken. Grace looked up, gave a little start, as if she had
just awoke from a dream, and held out her hand with a radiant smile of
welcome.
Vishnugupta rose, bent his head with the proud humility of the Brahmin,
drew his robe about his head, and, making answer neither by word nor
sign to the rajah's entreaty that he would stay for a little while,
passed slowly out of the apartment.
* * * * *
The priest had scarcely gone before there came a flutter of garments
and a gay noise of laughter and voices in eager conversation from
behind the screen that separated the hall and the sleeping-rooms. Then
Lucy's little saucy face appeared above the palisade that bordered the
daïs.
'Has he gone?' she whispered.
'Do you mean Vishnugupta?' said Tom, laughing at her mysterious
expression.
'Is that his name? What a name! And oh! what a person!' cried Lucy. She
ran up the steps and brought her charming little person, bewitchingly
dressed in a long Indian cashmere robe, drawn in at the waist with a
golden girdle, into full view. 'I was with Grace when he came in,' she
said. 'I have been arranging the table, and I was arranging her. He
looked at me and I withered up to nothing. But as Grace seemed to take
to him and his talk like a duck to water, I just ran away and left them
alone. Darling,' turning to Grace, 'what, in the name of heaven, were
you talking about? He has been with you more than half an hour.'
Then the others came in, all of them looking curious. But Grace lay
back with a smile on her lips, and a strange, inscrutable expression in
her eyes.
'It was very good of you,' said Tom gently. 'But you must not let these
people tire you. I wonder who admitted Vishnugupta.'
'Please let him come again if he likes,' said Grace. 'He does not tire
me in the least. I think, do you know, he has done me good.' She smiled
more naturally than Tom had seen her smile since the day when he found
her in the jungle.
'Oh! if he does you good, he shall come every day, and I will thank
and bless him to the end of my life,' said Tom gaily. 'But now, may we
draw you up to the table? We are to have a merry evening, you know,
Grace.' His voice shook a little, and, in spite of the brave effort to
be cheerful, the muscles of his face contracted painfully. He could not
help seeing how fragile she was.
But she took up his words at once. 'Yes, yes,' she said; 'a merry
evening. Let us fancy ourselves in England, on the banks of the
Thames. Thank you,' as they drew in her couch. 'I am sorry to be so
troublesome. Kit, will you sit near me, and Aglaia next? No, no, Rajah
Sahib; you must take the place of honour. So! We can all see you now!
Has he really changed so much, Mrs. Lyster?'
'Changed! He hasn't changed at all,' cried the enthusiastic little
Irishwoman. 'It's I that was the idiot not to know him. But I'll never
be so silly again. I promise you that.'
'I'm not quite so sure that it was your fault, Mrs. Lyster,' said Tom
aside. Mrs. Durant and Lucy were exchanging a little war of words about
some disputed point of the arrangements of the evening, and Grace was
talking merrily to Kit and Aglaia.
'Do you believe,' he asked abruptly, 'in the possibility of people
living in two individualities?'
She paused for a moment, and then looked meditatively at Grace.
'Until just lately,' she said, 'I should have called the question an
absurdity. But----'
'Please go on,' said Tom breathlessly.
'I have watched her,' whispered Mrs. Lyster. 'She is leading two lives.
The priest saw it. That is what brought him to-day. Don't look at her;
don't let her think you are watching her. She is very sensitive. It
would be the easiest thing in the world to frighten that pretty gaiety
away. Yes; she is living two lives, and----'
'Well! Don't stop----'
'It should be encouraged. It is her only chance.'
'Of what, Mrs. Lyster?'
'Of sanity and life.'
'What do you mean?' (sharply).
'Don't ask me just now. I will tell you by-and-by. But watch her.
Yes--and talk--be gay! I will help you as well as I can. She is a
noble creature--a heroine all impact--' said the warm-hearted little
Irishwoman, 'and you are _almost_ worthy of her, although--' and here
she pulled up and blushed violently.
'Although I'm not almost, but altogether a native,' filled in the
rajah, a humorous expression crossing his face. 'Thank you for the
compliment. It is no small one, Mrs. Lyster.'
'Go along with you,' she said, trying to laugh, though her face and
neck were one burning red. 'I shall be speaking to you presently in
my native Celtic, and telling you that you are nothing better than a
gossoon.'
'Which would enchant me,' said Tom, laughing. 'Anyway'--seriously--'we
sign to-night a truce and an alliance.'
'To be sure! though I don't know that I was ever at war with you,' said
Mrs. Lyster.
And thereupon they threw themselves into the conversation that was
going on around them.
Forgetting her own sorrows, the vivacious little Irishwoman pulled
herself together, brought out her best jokes and most amusing stories,
and became the life of the party. Lucy followed her lead. Mrs. Durant,
the desire of whose heart had been fulfilled, had no difficulty in
being lively. They drew out Kit, who made them all laugh with his funny
little sayings. Even the mother of little Dick condescended to forget
her own dignity and the imminence of the crisis through which she had
been brought, and to enjoy herself. But long before it was over, Tom
saw, to his distress, that the sudden springing up of vitality which
had enabled Grace to take part in the gaiety of the others was over.
She lay back on her couch white and still, turning her large blue-grey
eyes from one to another as the sallies of wit and merry anecdotes
flew by, and smiling now and then vaguely, as though she was making an
effort to follow them, but could not quite succeed.
The poor fellow was watching her, as a mother watches a sick child.
While he made a feint of listening to the talk at the table, laughing
when the others laughed to give himself countenance, and occasionally
launching out feebly a witticism of his own, he never lost a single
expression of the face that was so unutterably dear to him. Dinner
over, he crossed to where she was lying. 'Grace,' he said, in a low
voice, under cover of the talk, 'what is it? You are looking worse
to-day. Is all this too much for you?'
'No, no,' she answered, with a smile so gentle and patient that it
thrilled him to the heart. 'And do you know, I really feel better. You
must forgive me for not talking. You know' (pressing her hand to her
head) 'there is something here still. It won't let me. I get confused.'
'My darling,' he began passionately, and then checked himself. 'I
mustn't be too impulsive yet,' he said under his breath. 'Afterwards,
Grace, afterwards----'
'Ah!' she said, with a beautiful indescribable expression. 'Lucy has
written. They will know in a very short time that I am here. Perhaps
some of them will come. In the meantime--' dreamily.
'In the meantime, talk or be silent, as you please. Do anything! Only
get well and strong, Grace. Only get well and strong!'
'I will try,' she said plaintively. 'Sometimes--still--life seems very
sweet.'
'It will not be sometimes--it will be always, when you get better,'
said Tom earnestly.
But there was a pang at his heart, for all his cheerful words. For the
first time, since he saw her lying insensible in the hermit's hut in
the jungle, a feeling of despair swept over his young soul.
He would not--he could not--give place to it. Turning away, lest she
should read it in his eyes, he met a look of sympathy from Mrs. Lyster.
She was far too wise to put it into words, and he found, somewhat to
his relief, that he must arouse himself, for there was more to be done.
The Resident had sent word that, with his visitors, he would call upon
the ladies that evening, and Chunder Singh and Lutfullah, and several
other distinguished Indians, who in the rajah's absence had been
diligent in inquiries and offers of assistance, had asked permission to
wait upon them also.
It had been decided that the reception should be held in the little
pillared hall, which had been hung with garlands and banners for the
occasion. Lucy and Mrs. Durant thought it was about time to go down.
Grace was asked what she would do. Seeing Tom's wistful eyes fixed
upon her, she said that she would like to be present, if she might
be quiet. She had a curious dread of being alone in those days. But
when she tried to rise, she found that she was too weak. Tears of
vexation filled her eyes, but before they had time to fall, the rajah
and Bâl Narîn, and Hoosanee and Ganesh had sprung to her couch, and
it was lifted up with all its flowing draperies, as if it had been a
featherweight, and carried down the steps; Grace smiling through her
tears and begging them not to hurt themselves--to be sure to put her
down if she was too heavy--an entreaty that made the stout Indians
laugh.
'Put me a little out of everyone's way,' she had said to Tom. So he
found an arbour-like corner for her, beautifully shaded with palms
and tree-ferns, whence she could see everything that went on in the
brilliantly-lighted hall, without being much seen herself. There he put
the couch down. The Indians retired, and he stooped over her. 'Is that
right, Grace?'
'Perfectly right. I shall enjoy myself looking and listening. And
now, Tom, you must leave me. The Resident and the others will be here
directly.'
'I suppose I must,' he said regretfully. 'I will come back again in a
few moments, to see how you are.'
And so Grace lay quietly in her corner, and the anguish in her
heart--the phantom that was continually rising up to mock her--was at
rest for a few moments, while, like images in a dream, the busy little
crowd that soon filled the hall, came and went.
The Resident and the two English officers, and Chunder Singh and
Lutfullah, were brought up to speak to her. They spoke feelingly,
congratulating her on her escape. She found a few simple words with
which to answer them; but she could not say much, and the rajah took
care that she should not be made to talk more than she liked.
How deep her gratitude was for his watchful tenderness it would be
impossible to express. Once or twice, when he passed, she looked up at
him with a wistful smile, and once she touched his arm lightly with her
thin fingers, whispering, 'You are so good to me!'
'Good!' he echoed. 'Oh! Grace, if you only knew!'
And then, for an instant, the warm colour flooded his face, and his
eyes shone with a wonderful light; but, not daring to trust himself to
speak, he turned away, leaving Mrs. Lyster on guard.
Meanwhile, in the hall, which had surely never seen so strange a
gathering before, there was plenty of fun and good fellowship. The
party at the Residency had just been reinforced by Mr. Montgomery's
wife, a handsome and accomplished woman, her sister, a pretty, timid
girl fresh from England, and several other ladies, who had come to
Gumilcund on the Resident's invitation, leaving, in more cases than
one, desolated homes behind them. There were besides the two young
officers--Irish, by the bye, both of them--who had come in with Mrs.
Lyster, quite well now and up to all sorts of fun. And so the evening
glided on merrily. To an onlooker there might have seemed to be
something pathetic about their mirth. Scarcely one of the Europeans
but had some deep present anxiety to endure, or some recent loss to
mourn; but they were English ladies and gentlemen, and they knew how to
control themselves. For the sake of one another and their entertainer,
they would not be gloomy or morose. The two young officers sang comic
songs, and Mr. Montgomery, the Resident, brought out his violin and
played dance-tunes which made the feet of the younger ladies twitch
to be off, and brave Mrs. Lyster, who was fighting all night with a
desperate longing to run away and have a good cry, talked and laughed
and told travellers' tales, charming them all with her wit and
vivacity. The grave Indians, who knew through what deep waters many of
these poor women had passed, were surprised at their spirits. Happily
for some of them, it was not kept up late. The Resident and his party,
with hearty expressions of thanks and goodwill, took leave of them
long before midnight, and the Indian visitors followed their example
immediately. Then poor Mrs. Lyster sat down and covered her face with
her hands. 'I couldn't have stood it another five minutes. Oh! do all
of you think me a brute?' she cried, lifting up her haggard face.
'Don't! Don't!' cried Lucy piteously. 'You will make me cry.'
'I think you one of the bravest of women. I always did,' said Tom. 'Do
you remember the storm? No one was so plucky as you.'
'Do I remember it?' said Mrs. Lyster, with a queer little smile. 'Why,
it was nothing--child's play. But come, my son of Anak, pick up the
couch and carry our invalid inside. Be quiet, my dear!' to Grace.
'You're not to be allowed to stir a step to-night. Carry her in, Mr.
Rajah, and then take your retinue away and say good-night. We will face
the terrors of the silent hours together.'
After that the days glided quietly one into the other. Every morning
the rajah met his family, as he used to call the ladies and children
who had found a refuge in the palace, at breakfast, in the pretty
garden-pavilion. And pleasant breakfasts they were, although Grace
was never present: for some one--Kit, or Aglaia, or Mrs. Lyster, or
Lucy--had always something encouraging to say about her. During the day
he gave himself without reserve to business and study, and cultivating
useful and kindly relations with the people about him, making meanwhile
such progress in the knowledge of Indian affairs, and gaining such
insight into hidden depths of life and character, and into the scope
and meaning of the philosophies and religions of the country, as would
sometimes surprise even himself. After sunset, when the work of the
day was over, he met his friends again, and they would all take their
evening meal together, talking over past and present, discussing
hopefully the state of affairs in the country, and exchanging the news
which the mails of the day had brought in.
Sometimes Grace would join them at these dinners in the hall, and
sometimes not; but she always sent him affectionate messages, of
which Aglaia was generally the bearer, and he seldom spent a day
without seeing her once. Later he looked back upon those early days at
Gumilcund, full to the brim of joyful interests, and flooded with the
light of hope, as some of the happiest in his life.
Gradually a dull pain--a terror to which he could not give a
name--began to encroach upon their sweetness. Why did not Grace pick
up her strength? At first her weakness was easily to be accounted for.
But surely the time had come when they might look for improvement. The
rest, the freedom from anxiety, and the daily companionship of her
friends ought, by this time, to be taking some effect. Sometimes, when
they met, he would try to cheat himself into the belief that she was
better and brighter; but the absence of vital strength was a fact that,
in spite of himself, pressed home to his heart. Day after day he saw
the same white face, the same patient smile, the same sorrow-haunted
eyes. Day after day he was the witness of efforts so pathetic that he
would entreat her sometimes not to make them. 'Be patient, my beloved!'
he would whisper; and all the time, in his own heart there would be
a tumult of fierce impatience, a gnawing of angry pain that almost
unnerved him.
But this was not all. He was conscious--they were all conscious--of a
mental cloud--a veil that seemed at times to wrap her away from them.
'Grace is changed. I don't know what to make of her. But I wish--oh! I
do wish--that her mother would come,' Lucy cried out one morning when
Tom asked her the usual question. Mrs. Lyster gave her a warning look,
but she went on. 'Yes; I can't help it. I must speak. Something ought
to be done.'
'What can be done, Lucy?' said Tom, whose face had turned perfectly
grey.
'Don't mind Lucy. She is speaking wildly,' said Mrs. Lyster. 'She
forgets--we all forget--that there are experiences which nothing but
the healing hand of time--the slow passage of the years----'
She broke down, for her voice was choked with sobs.
'I know,' said Lucy penitently. 'But, dear Mrs. Lyster, you have
suffered more than any of us, and you are not so strange, so reserved.'
'My dear child, I am much older than Grace, and I have the Irish
elasticity of temper, I suppose. We can laugh with the tears on our
faces; and I thank God for it. And now, like a darling, run off and
look after the children, and leave the rajah to me.'
Lucy hesitated for a moment, looked at them with a curious
half-mutinous expression in her face, and then turned away.
The other ladies had already left the summer-house, so that Mrs. Lyster
and Tom were alone.
'Thank you,' he said, looking at her with strained, eager eyes.
She shook her head sadly.
'Tell me what to do?' he cried out passionately. 'I love her. You know
this already. I would give my life--my blood drawn from me painfully
drop by drop--to save her a single pang. The thought of her trouble is
agony to me--torture. What are we to do? Shall I send to Agra for an
English doctor? I might.'
'I am afraid, my poor friend, that no doctor would do her any good. The
disease lies deeper than medicine can cure.'
'What would, then? Tell me, for heaven's sake!'
'She has something on her mind,' said Mrs. Lyster doubtfully.
'I know it--I know it. A fancied trouble. If some one reasonable and
wise, like you, were to talk it over with her, she might be persuaded
to put it from her. Won't you try?'
'I dare not,' said Mrs. Lyster, in a broken voice.
Tom started. 'I don't understand,' he said confusedly.
'And I am afraid I can't explain,' she said. 'There is something about
her--a whiteness of soul, a majesty. There, I am stumbling about as
usual. In plain English, I can't get near her, and I am afraid to
attempt it.'
'And yet----' began Tom.
'And yet,' filled in his companion, 'she can be bright enough
sometimes. Yes; that is just what I told you before, she has her hours.
And' (mysteriously) 'I will tell you a curious thing. That Brahmin,
with the wild face and unpronounceable name, does her more good than
anyone else. He came in yesterday, just before dinner. I was in the
hall with her, and I stayed because I was curious; but of course I was
not quick enough at Hindoostani to pick up all they said. You remember
how calm she looked in the evening. We all remarked it. But it was so
before. She is easier, brighter altogether, when she has been having
one of her long wild talks with that wild man.'
'Why wild, Mrs. Lyster?'
'Why, because, so far as I can make out, they seem to be scaling
heights and plunging into depths of which we poor mortals have no
idea. But I will tell you one thing that struck me, his manner to her.
We--well! he doesn't take any notice of us. I don't believe he sees
us. He treats _her_ with a reverence that, coming from a man like him,
is one of the most touching things I have ever met with in all my
experience. It is just as if' (in an awed tone) 'he was talking to one
_on the other side_.'
'Don't, don't!' cried Tom piteously. He was trembling even to the lips,
which were ashy pale; but he made a feeble effort to smile. 'You come
of an imaginative race, Mrs. Lyster,' he said. 'I understand that, of
course. But for heaven's sake, let us have prose, not poetry! It would
be too dreadful to let her slip through our fingers now! Can _nothing_
be done?'
'We shall know more when her mother comes,' said Mrs. Lyster. And that
was all.
The young rajah went to his work that morning with a heart so full that
it seemed to him as if bands of steel, growing harder and tighter every
moment, were winding themselves about him, and pressing out his life.
Like a mournful voice--an echo of something he had heard before, Mrs.
Lyster's words repeated themselves in his brain. 'On the other side.'
What if there was some strange, mystical truth in them? What if in that
trance the pure, strong spirit had winged its flight to the heavenly
sphere--had found its home there--and now was only kept to its earthly
tabernacle by their love, and tears, and prayers? It was a terrible
thought. Again and again he tried to put it away from him, but it
returned unceasingly, through that long and miserable day, taking the
strangest forms, as it swept through his mind. In the evening, when he
went up to the hall, he half expected to hear that Grace was worse. But
she was in her place, and though she was as pale and fragile as usual,
she greeted him with a smile of unusual brightness.
Dinner over, he sat down by her couch. 'Grace, dearest,' he said, 'I
wish you would tell me what you and Vishnugupta talk about when you are
together. I am, in some sort, a protégé of his, and yet, do you know, I
have never been able to draw him out, as you do?'
Grace looked up at him, an expression of childlike wonder in her eyes.
'Draw him out!' she echoed. 'I don't think I quite understand.'
'Well, then, make him talk.'
'Ah!' she said, smiling. 'But, indeed, it is quite the contrary. He has
made me talk.'
'How, Grace?'
'I don't know. I think there is a power about him--a fascination. Do
you remember what I told you one day when we were travelling? How I
looked round me--above--below--on every side, and saw nothing but
misery and pain--how I could not believe in God--could not even thank
Him for saving me?'
'Yes, I remember,' said Tom.
'And after that,' she went on, 'I felt, but I couldn't speak. It was
all in here--burning--burning--but no words--an awful indescribable
loneliness. You were all about me, loving me, helping me, caring for
me so kindly, and I was like one apart--a spirit in prison. Then I
saw this Brahmin-prophet. It was the evening we came in.' She spoke
rapidly, and with a curious exultation, which had the strangest effect
upon her listeners--for there were two now, Mrs. Lyster having joined
them. 'I saw him standing in the road--such a strange figure! It
frightened poor little Kit; but I--ah! I can't tell you what it was--he
looked at me, and it seemed to me as if he were looking straight down
into my soul, as if he knew how I felt. And yet I did not tremble. I
asked him to come and see me, and he came. He sat down there. He said
nothing, not a single word; but I spoke; it was as if an angel had come
down and loosened my tongue, letting the burning thoughts free.'
'Did Vishnugupta understand you?' said Tom.
'He did more than understand. He explained me to myself. Listen,
my beloved, and see how overpowering--how beautiful it is. We are
stretching out our hands in the darkness--looking for God--weeping
because He does not answer our prayers, and He is here within us.
We shall part, or we shall think that we part, but it is not so.
We cannot part, we meet eternally in the bosom of the Divine. But
before we can know this, and enter into His peace, the self must be
slain--will--desire--love of the things that are not He. Listen again!
I wondered, you know, where the evil came from--pain, misery, cruelty.
I know now. These are the things to which the self will grow in its
darkness. But there is hope, for in the sting is the cure. Through
the evil--through the bitter pain and misery--the vision is born. The
poison has a heart of healing. If there were none of this misery that
revolts our ignorance, the self would go on, building its palaces about
it till the Divine was shut out. As it is, we grow weary at last, and
we lay ourselves down at His feet. I thought it was a dream at first;
but he spoke to me again, and each time he spoke the vision became
clearer. He says they have known it here for thousands of years. It has
been growing and fading--growing and fading; but there were always some
who held it fast, and when faith was weak, and many had gone astray,
and the clue to the labyrinth was in danger of being lost, then a
revealer--a God-sent teacher came.'
There was a pause. Neither of her companions spoke. Mrs. Lyster was
looking out before her with bewildered eyes. If this was love-making,
it was the strangest she had ever heard of. Tom had covered his face
with his hands. It seemed to him that she was moving further and
further away from them, and he could not speak for the sorrowful aching
at his heart. Then she put out her hand, and, with a smile of the most
divine compassion and love, touched his arm. 'Dearest,' she said, 'I
must tell you something more. They are expecting another revealer. He
will be different from any who have gone before him, for the sphere
will be larger. New lights have been dawning upon the nations, and new
truths, forced painfully from the silence by the higher minds, are
waiting to be shown to the people. He will know all these. He will be
of the West by his training, of the East by his nature. He will have
the science and learning of the New World, and the self-forgetting
passion of the Old. For years he will be content to learn--watching
and waiting for the happy moment. Then, when he is sure of himself and
sure of them, he will speak--here, in this wonderful country, which
has given so many wonderful things to the world, and thousands upon
thousands will follow him. This is what Vishnugupta told me, and do
you know what I thought? "Our prophet is here," I thought to myself.
Years upon years to come, when all this dreadful strife and sore is
healed, and when I, with so many, many others, who had a part in it,
are laid to rest and forgotten, he will speak the words of life, and
then, perhaps,' her lips parted in a yearning smile, 'he will remember
his love of old time, and these few days of love and happiness, that
his love made for her, before----'
'Hush! Grace! Hush!' cried the poor boy passionately. 'It is you I
want----' Mrs. Lyster turned away weeping, and he broke into a piteous
entreaty that Grace would unsay her cruel words. But in a moment the
words died away upon his lips, and he was gazing at her with ashy face
and horror-stricken eyes. For the expression they so much dreaded--the
look of fear and piteous distress--had come back into her face. In the
next moment he had recovered his presence of mind, and was stooping
over her to ask if she wanted anything. 'No,' she said, trying to
smile. 'I am tired;' and then with white lips and eyes, whose sorrowful
yearning will haunt him to the end of his days, she besought him to
leave her alone.