“Yes, we have all seen it in a small way; and does it not seem

strange that men have never thought of cultivating it in a larger

way, through the exercise of their will in controlling their minds

and bodies? This exaltation of spirit is only attained through

effort, or some great physical shock. It is the secret of all power;

it conquers all pain, and makes disease impossible.”

“Makes disease impossible!” cried Paul in astonishment.

“Yes,” answered the elder man quietly. “This soul power, of which I

speak, is the hidden akasa in all men--it is the man himself--and

when once recognized, the body is relegated to its proper sphere as

the servant, and not the master; then it is that man realizes his own

power and supremacy over all things.”

“But,” persisted Henley, “if you go so far as to say that this occult

or soul power can conquer disease, you would have us all living

forever!”

“We do live forever,” answered Ah Ben.

“Yes, after death; but I mean here!”

“_There is no such thing as death_!” remarked Ah Ben quietly, as if

he were merely giving expression to a well-established scientific

fact.

“And yet we see it about us every day,” Paul replied.

“There you are wrong, for no man has ever seen that which never

occurs!”

“You are quibbling with words,” suggested Henley.

“There is a change at a certain period in a man's life, which, from

ignorance, people have agreed to call death. But it is a misnomer,

for man never dies. He goes right on living; and it is generally a

considerable time before he realizes the change that has taken place

in him. He would laugh at the word death, as understood upon earth,

as indeed he frequently does, for he is far more alive than ever

before.”

“You speak as if you knew all this,” said Paul. “One might almost

imagine that you had been in the other world yourself.”

“_Had been_!” exclaimed the old man with emphasis. “_I am in it now,

and so are you. But there is a difference between us; I know that I

am in it, because I can see it, and touch it, and hear it; while you

are in it without knowing it_.”

There was an air of authority that impressed the hearer with the

conviction of the speaker. This was not theory; it was the result of

experience. There was a difference as vast as the night from the day.

“I suppose, when I am dead, I shall know these things too,” said Paul

meditatively.

“No,” answered Ah Ben, “not when you are dead, but when you have been

born--when you have come into life.”

“Pardon me,” answered Paul, pondering on the man's strange assertion;

“but this knowledge of yours is in demand more than all other

knowledge. Positive information about the other world is what men

have sought through all the ages; why do you not impart it to them?”

“Impart it!” exclaimed Ah Ben. “Can you explain to one who has been

born blind what it is to see? Can you impart to such a man any true

conception of the world in which he has always lived? But _couch_ his

eyes, remove the worthless film that has covered them, and for the

first time he realizes the glorious world surrounding him. Likewise

_couch_ the body, remove the shell that covers the spirit, and it is

born.”

“I perceive, then, that it is only through death that most of us can

hope to gain this knowledge.”

“Death, if you prefer the word,” said Ah Ben. “Yes, it is the death

of the film over the eye that reveals the world to the blind; but I

should hardly say that the man was dead because he had so entered

into another existence.”

“Would you mind telling me how it is that you have gained this

knowledge in such obvious exception to the rule!”

“The power of the occult is dormant in all men,” answered Ah Ben;

“and as I have already said, may be developed slowly, through the

exercise of the will, or suddenly, as in some great physical shock,

and of a necessity comes to all in the event called death. Were I to

tell you how _I_ acquired this knowledge, Mr. Henley, it would

startle you, far more than any exhibition of the power itself. No, I

can not tell you; at least, not at present; perhaps some day you may

be better prepared to hear it.”

The spark in the hanging lamp had almost expired, and the fire was

reduced to a mere handful of coals, casting an erubescent glow over

the pew and its occupants. Ah Ben stretched his hand toward the

chimney, and as he did so, a ball of misty light appeared against it,

just below the mantel. It was ill defined and hazy, like the

reflection a firefly will sometimes make against the ceiling of a

darkened room; but it was fixed, and Paul was sure it had not been

there a moment before.

“Do you see that?” asked the old man, breaking the silence.

“Yes,” answered Paul; “and I was just wondering what it could be.”

“Watch! and you will see.”

They sat with their eyes fixed; but while Paul was staring into the

mantel, Ah Ben was looking at him.

“Observe how it grows,” and even as he spoke the strange illumination

deepened, until it assumed the distinct and definite form of a lamp.

Then the mantelpiece dissolved into nothingness, and Paul was staring

through the chimney into a strange room, whose form and contents were

dimly revealed by the curious lamp which occupied a table in the

centre. Two persons sat at this table, the one a woman, the other a

boy, and near at hand was an English army officer. The woman was

small, with dark eyes and hair, and a skin the color of tan bark. Her

head was bowed forward and rested upon her arms, which were crossed

upon the table. The man was looking down at her with a troubled

expression, and in a minute he stooped forward and kissed the top of

her head; he then turned suddenly and left the room. The scene was

distinct, although the outer part of the room was in shadow.

Presently the woman threw herself to the floor with a heart-rending

shriek, and Paul started up, exclaiming:

“What has happened? She will wake everybody in the house!”

He bounded to his feet; but as he did so, the lamp in the strange

room went out, and the chimney closed over the scene, leaving him

with his old surroundings. Looking up at Ah Ben, he said:

“I must have fallen asleep. I've been dreaming.”

“Not at all,” answered Ah Ben. “You've been quite as wide awake as I

have, and we've been looking at the same thing.”

Paul demanded the proof, which the old man gave by telling him what

he had seen in every detail.

“Then it's magic!” said Henley, “for surely no room can be visible

through that chimney.”

“That,” answered Ah Ben, “is mere assertion, which you can never

prove.”

“Do you mean to tell me that the thing was real? There is a secret

about this house which I do not understand!”

His manner was excited. He felt that he had been the dupe of the man

before him, the prey to some clever trick; the thing was too

preposterous, too unreasonable.

“Be calm,” said Ah Ben; “there is nothing in this that should disturb

you. The room has disappeared from our sight, and will no more

trouble us. Shall we have another pipe?”

The words had an instantaneous effect, so that Paul resumed his seat

and pipe, as if nothing had happened. For several minutes he sat

silently gazing at vacancy, and listening to the north wind as it

moaned through the old pines. He was trying to account for what he

had seen, but could not. The mystery was deepening into an

overpowering gloom. The house, with its eccentric inmates; the girl

Dorothy, with her freaks and manner of living; the odd circumstance

of the stairway in his closet; these, and other things, flashed upon

his memory in a confused jumble, and seemed as inexplicable as the

vision just witnessed through the chimney.

Suddenly a thought struck him. Could this last have been hypnotism?

He put the question straight to Ah Ben. The man passed his withered

hand over his face thoughtfully as he answered:

“Hypnotism, Mr. Henley, is a name that is used in the West for a

condition that has been known in the East for thousands of years as

the underlying principle of _all phenomena_.”

“And what is that condition?” Paul inquired.

“_Sympathetic vibration_,” answered the elder man.

“Vibration of what?” asked Paul.

“Of the mind,” said Ah Ben. “The condition of the universal mind

vibrating in our material plane, or within the range of our physical

senses, is represented in the trees and the rocks, in the earth and

the stars. Our physical senses, being attuned to his form of

vibration, are in sympathy with it, and apprehend all its phenomena.

There is but one mind, of which man is a part. Thought is a product

of mind. Thought is real, and, when sufficiently concentrated,

becomes tangible and visible to those who can be brought into

sympathy with its vibrations. There is but one primal substance,

which is mind. Mind creates all things out of itself; therefore, to

change the world we look at, it is only necessary to change our

minds.”

“Let me ask if what I saw was hypnotism?” repeated Henley. “I ask

this, first, because I know it is impossible to see through a brick

wall, even if there should be such a room in the house; and,

secondly, because I cannot believe that I was dreaming, consequently

the thing could not have been real.”

“Hypnotism is a good enough word,” answered Ah Ben; “but that which

men generally understand by the real, and that which they consider

the unreal, are not so far apart as they suppose. You say the room

was not real, and yet you saw it; had you wished, you might have

touched it, which is certainly all the evidence you have of the

existence of the room in which we are now sitting. Hypnotism is not a

cause of hallucination, as is commonly supposed, but of fact. Its

effects are not illusory, but real. Perhaps it would be more correct

to say that they are _as real_ as anything else, and that _all_ the

phenomena of nature are mere illusions of the senses, which they

undoubtedly are. But whichever side we take, all appearances are the

result of the same general cause--that of mental vibration. Matter

has no real existence.”

Paul was meditating on what he had seen and what he was now hearing.

Ah Ben's words were endowed with an added force by the vision of the

mysterious room.

“When you tell me that there is practically no difference between the

real and the unreal, and that matter has no real existence, I must

confess to some perplexity,” observed Henley.

Ah Ben looked up and smoothed the furrows in his withered cheek

thoughtfully for a minute before he answered:

“Unfortunately, Mr. Henley, language is not absolute or final in its

power to convey thought, and the best we can do is to use it as

carefully as possible to express ourselves, which we can only hope to

do approximately. Therefore when I say that a thing is hot or cold,

or hard or soft, I only mean that it is so by comparison with certain

other things; and when I say that matter has no existence, I mean

that it has no independent existence--no existence outside of the

mind that brought it into being. I mean that it was formed by mind,

formed out of mind, and that it continues to exist in mind as a part

of mind. I mean that it is an appearance objective to our point of

consciousness on the material plane; but inasmuch as it was formed by

thought, it can be reformed by thought, which could never be if it

existed independently of thought. It is real in the sense of apparent

objectivity, and not real in the sense of independent objectivity,

and yet it affects us in precisely the same manner as if it were

independent of thought. What, then, is the difference between matter

as viewed from the Idealist's or the Materialist's point of view? At

first there is apparently none, but a deeper insight will show us

that the difference is vast and radical, for in the one case the tree

or the chair that I am looking at, owing its very existence to mind,

is governed by mind, which could never be did they exist as separate

and distinct entities. Therefore I say with perfect truth that matter

does not exist in the one sense, and yet that it does exist in the

other. I dream of a green field; a beautiful landscape, never before

beheld; I awake and it is gone. Where was that enchanting scene? I

can tell you: for it was in the mind, where everything else is. But

upon waking I have changed my mind, and the scene has vanished. Thus

it is with the Adept of the East, with the Yoghis, the Pundit, the

Rishis, and the common Fakir; through the power of hypnotism they

alter the condition of the subject's mind, and with it his world has

likewise undergone a change. You say this is not real, that it is

merely illusion; but in reply I would say that these illusions have

been subjected to the severest tests; their reality has been

certified to by every human sense, and when an illusion responds to

the sense of both sight and touch, when the sense of sight is

corroborated by that of touch, or by any other of the five senses,

what _better_ evidence have we of the existence of those things we

are all agreed to call real? Yes, I know what you are about to say,

you object upon the ground that only a small minority are witnesses

of the marvels of Eastern magic; but you are wrong, for I have seen

hundreds of men in a public square all eye-witnesses to precisely the

same occult phenomena at once. Now if certain hundreds could be so

impressed, why not other hundreds? And with a still more powerful

hypnotizer, why could not a majority--nay, all of those in a certain

district, a certain State, a certain country, _in the world_--be made

to see and feel things which now, and to us, have no existence? In

that case, Mr. Henley, would it be the majority or the minority who

were deceived? _All is mind_, and the hypnotizer merely alters it.”

“You said just now,” answered Paul, “that matter, being mind, was

governed by mind, and that the tree or chair before me, owing its

existence to mind, is subject to that mind; do you mean by that to

say that the existence of that sofa, as a sofa, may be transformed

into something else by mental action alone?”

“I do,” said Ah Ben, “under certain conditions; namely, the condition

called hypnotism. On this material plane we are imprisoned; the will

is not free to operate upon its environment, but in the spiritual

state this dependence and slavery to the appearances we call

realities is cast aside; the will becomes free and controls its own

environment--in short, we are out of prison. But even here, Mr.

Henley, by practicing the self-control we were speaking of, the will

becomes so powerful that it can sometimes break through the bondage

of matter, which, after all, is no more real than the stuff a dream

is made of, and mold its prison walls into any form it chooses; in

which case, of course, it is no longer a prison, and the other world

is achieved without the change called death!”

“And why do you call it a prison, if no more real than a dream?”

“Have you ever had the nightmare? If so, you must know that your will

was insufficient to free you from the horrid scene that had taken

such forcible hold of you. Was the nightmare real or not?”

Paul was silent for several minutes. He could not deny the reality of

the scene through the chimney, for it had the same forceful existence

to him as anything in life. Ah Ben, seeing that he was still puzzling

himself over the problem of mind and matter, the puzzle of life, the

great sphinx riddle of the ages, said:

“Let me ask you a question, Mr. Henley--I might say several

questions--which may possibly tend to throw a little light upon

this subject, and perhaps convince you that matter is really mind.”

“Ask as many as you like.”

“Pantheism,” continued Ah Ben, “is scoffed at by many people calling

themselves Christians as being idolatrous, and yet to me it is the

most ennobling of all creeds. Without knowing anything of your

religious faith, I would first ask if you believe in God?”

Paul answered affirmatively.

“Do you look upon him as a personal Deity--I mean as an exaggerated

man in size and power--or as a Spirit?”

“As a Spirit,” Paul replied.

“Very well, then; do you believe that Spirit is infinite or finite?”

“Infinite.”

“Then, if it is infinite, there can be no part of space in which it

does not exist.”

“That is my idea also.”

“If, then, that Spirit exists everywhere, it must penetrate all

matter; in fact, all matter must, in its very essence, be a part of

it; it must be formed out of the very substance of this infinite

Spirit or Mind. Hence all is mind!”

“That seems clear enough,” said Paul; “in which case it seems to me

that we are a part of God ourselves, and God being spirit, we must be

spirits now.”

“Of course we are,” answered Ah Ben; “as I have already told you, we

are in the spiritual world now, although much of it is screened from

our view, because we are temporarily imprisoned in a lower vibratory

plane, called matter.”

Ah Ben arose, and procuring candles, which he lighted by the expiring

fire, the men went to their beds.

6

It was past midnight, and the house quiet, when Paul determined to

have another look at the mysterious door at the foot of his closet

stairs. He had sat for more than an hour before his bedroom fire,

after bidding Ah Ben good-night, to make sure that the inmates of

Guir House had retired; and as not a sound had been heard since

locking his door, he sincerely hoped they were asleep. Before

descending into the noisome depths, however, he concluded to climb up

into his window, and have another look at the beautiful panorama of

mountain and woodland shimmering in the meagre light of a hazy sky

and a moon past full. The uncertain outline of a distant horizon; the

interminable stretch of forest, which bore away upon every hand; the

rugged heights, now soft and colorless; the aromatic smell of pine

and fir; the distant murmur of falling water; and the assonant

whispering of wind in the tree tops, had all become strangely

fascinating to him, more so than such things had ever been before.

“Never was a house so situated, so lost to the world, so tightly held

in the lap of unregenerate nature,” thought Paul; “no laugh of child,

no shout of man, no bark of dog, nor bellowing beast to break the

stillness of the midnight air; an impenetrable, imperturbable, and

silent wilderness shuts out the busy world, as we know it, forever

and forever. It is a fitting place for such witchery as the old man

seems master of, and I do not wonder that he has chosen it for his

home; but the girl--the poor girl!--she must get away!” He closed the

window, and prepared for his descent into the well.

Removing his shoes, he put on a pair of soft felt slippers, and then,

with candle in his hand, a box of matches and a revolver in his

pocket, entered the closet, and opened the scuttle in the floor. A

mouldy smell rose upon the air, and Henley recoiled at the thought of

what might be in waiting below. He had not the slightest idea of how

he should open the door at the bottom, but would make a careful study

of the situation, hoping that a solution of the difficulty would

present itself. The steps creaked dismally as he placed his weight

upon them, and it was necessary to use extreme caution to avoid

breaking through the more rotten ones. He had not descended more than

a dozen, when there was a terrible crash above his head, and he found

himself in absolute darkness. The trap had fallen as upon the

previous night, he having forgotten to fasten it back, and the wind

had blown out his candle. Henley hastened back up the stairs, fearful

lest the noise had waked some one in the house, and without

relighting his candle threw himself upon the bed to await

developments. After listening for some minutes, and hearing nothing,

he became convinced that no one had been disturbed; and so, creeping

out of bed, and lighting his candle by the dying embers in the

fireplace, started in afresh. This time he was careful to fasten back

the scuttle door, and in doing so discovered that one of the great

iron hinges was loose. It was more than two feet long, and with very

little difficulty he managed to wrench it off, thinking it might

possibly be of service in forcing the door at the bottom. He was

careful this time to let the scuttle down quietly after him, thinking

it safer to do this than to prop it open.

The bottom was reached in safety after the usual doleful crunching

and creaking of the timber, and Paul sat down on the bottom step,

with his candle, to rest and quiet himself, before proceeding with

his work upon the door. A dead stillness reigned all about him,

broken only by the occasional resettling of the steps above his head,

but which, to his excited brain, was like the report of a pistol;

still even this ceased in a few minutes, and the silence was

undisturbed. He now made a careful examination of the door. It was

very heavy, and solid. Holding his candle close against the crack, he

could see, to his surprise, that it was bolted upon the inside.

Placing his ear close against the keyhole, he listened, but it was

silent as a tomb within; and how the door became fastened upon the

inside was inexplicable, unless indeed there was another outlet,

which from his examination of the building had seemed improbable.

Then, taking out his knife, he stuck it into the wood in various

directions to ascertain the condition of its preservation. The door

itself was in an excellent state; but in examining the lintel, the

blade of his knife suddenly sank into the rotten wood up to the

handle. Here, then, was the place to begin operations, and

fortunately it was on the side from which the door opened. Henley had

soon dug away a great segment of decayed wood, exposing the bolt

clearly to view. Then taking the hinge which he had brought with him,

and slipping the small end between the bolt and the frame of the

door, he used it as a lever to pry against the bolt within. The iron

was so old and rusty, and his purchase so poor, that he only

succeeded in making a rasping sound where the two metals scraped

against each other, and so stopped, discouraged. Presently he

bethought him of his handkerchief, which he wrapped carefully around

the end of the hinge, and thus not only gained a better purchase,

increasing his leverage, but was able to operate without the

slightest sound. It was a long time before the bolt moved, but to his

intense gratification it did move at last, and Henley took a fresh

grip upon his hinge. Backward and forward he worked his lever, and

with each turn the old bolt slipped back a little. At last he could

see the end of it, and then it was clear of the frame entirely. He

had expected no difficulty in opening the door when the hinge was

once slipped, but to his surprise it was still immovable. He pulled

and tugged and pushed, but it would not budge; then suddenly, just as

he was about to give up, it came tumbling down upon him, so that he

was barely able to save it from falling against the stairs with a

terrible crash, but fortunately caught it upon his shoulder, and

lowered it to the floor without a sound. Imagine his surprise in

going to what he now believed to be the open portal, to find that the

doorway had been bricked up from within, and that the door itself had

simply been the back of a solid wall. Naturally, he was disappointed

at finding himself no nearer the inner chamber than before. A careful

examination of the masonry showed that the work of bricking up the

entrance had undoubtedly been done from the other side, and after the

door had been closed and bolted. This was evidenced from the fact

that there was no mortar next the door, against the smooth inner

surface of which the bricks had been closely laid. Henley worked his

hinge between some of the looser joints, and found, just as he

expected, that the mortar had been laid from within. By degrees he

managed to wedge one of the bricks out of its place, and then pulled

it bodily from the wall. The inner surface was plastered over. He

tried another, which he got out more easily, and it told the same

tale. Then he went to work in earnest, and had soon dug a hole large

enough to admit his body. Leaning over into the aperture, with his

candle at arm's length, the place looked dark and empty, with faint

masses of lighter shadow. Then, with a certain indescribable awe,

Henley commenced crawling through the breach. Stepping upon an

earthern floor, he found himself in a vault-like chamber--damp,

mouldy, and foul of atmosphere. He glanced hurriedly about, and then

turned to examine the wall through which he had come. Just as he had

surmised, the bricks had been laid from the inner side, and plastered

over within. The person who had done the work must have had some

other means of escape. This set him to wondering where the other

entrance could be, and to a careful search around the wall; but there

was no door, no window, nor opening of any kind. How had the work

been done? While he was wondering, he stumbled over something in the

floor, and, recovering, threw back his head, holding his candle high

above it. He was startled by the sight of what appeared to be four

shadowy human faces, looking directly at him from above.

Instinctively he sought his revolver, but before drawing it perceived

that what he had taken for living people were simply four portraits,

of the most remarkable character he had ever beheld. Paul stared in

bewilderment at the sight before him. The pictures were so old, their

canvases so rotten and mildewed and stained with the accumulated

fungi of time and darkness that it was only by degrees that the

intention of the artist became manifest. In the hall and other

apartments of the old house, Henley thought he had seen the most

original and inexplicable pictures ever painted; but here, buried

forever from the sight of human eyes, were the most dreadful

countenances ever transcribed from life or the imagination of man.

Torture was clearly depicted upon each face; but not torture alone,

for horror, fright, and mental agony were strangely blended in each.

Not a face that looked down upon him from those antiquated frames but

bore that agonized, heart-broken, terrified expression. Paul was

paralyzed; a kind of mesmeric spell held him to the spot, so that he

could not remove his eyes from the uncanny scene before him. Then a

wild desire to be rid of the place forever seized him, and he stepped

backward. At the same minute he observed for the first time what

looked like some faded letters painted upon the wall directly beneath

the four mysterious portraits. Examining these with his candle, he

saw that they formed the words:

“_The last of the Guirs_.”

“No wonder Dorothy said that she was afraid of them,” Paul reflected;

“their portraits alone would drive me mad.” He took another long

searching look; and as his eyes grew accustomed to the faded

coloring, he observed how cleverly the work had been done. Evidently

the pictures had been painted from life, though under what

circumstances Henley could never imagine. The faces were all those of

a feminine type; they were of young women, apparently but little more

than girls, and each with this life-like, though dreadful expression.

As Paul stood marveling and wondering, a new interest seized him. At

first he could not quite understand what it was, but it became

stronger and better defined, he knew, for he recognized one of the

faces. Yes, there could be no mistake about it; the picture on the

left was a _portrait of Dorothy herself_. Henley rubbed his eyes, and

looked again and again; he could not believe their evidence, but they

had not deceived him. He tried to make himself believe that it was

the likeness of some ancestor, to whom she had a strange resemblance;

but, despite the look of pain, it could be no other than Dorothy, and

indeed this very expression helped to heighten the likeness, for had

he not seen a similar expression at the breakfast table? The longer

he gazed at it, the more convinced he became that this was a portrait

of Miss Guir. At last, thoroughly mystified, he turned away,

intending to leave this grewsome chamber of horrors forever; but now

for the first time the heap of rubbish in the center of the floor

engaged his attention. Taking his hinge, he stirred up the mass; some

shreds of cloth, which fell to pieces on being touched, and beneath

them some human bones. This was all, but it was enough; and

overwhelmed with horror, Henley rushed out of the room, bounding

through the aperture he had made in the wall, and up the rickety

stairs into his own bed chamber. He carefully closed the scuttle,

heaped some firewood upon it, shut the closet door and fastened it

securely from without. He then built up a roaring fire, lit another

candle, and sat meditating over what he had seen until the dawn of

day. When the light of the sun came streaming into his room, he

undressed and went to bed.

Whatever may have been Mr. Henley's suspicions concerning the

implication of the Guirs with the crime which he could no longer

doubt had been committed in their house, they were promptly

dispelled, so far as the young lady was concerned, upon meeting

Dorothy at the breakfast table. Her innocent though serious face was

a direct rebuke to any distrust he might have entertained; and he

even doubted if she had any knowledge of the state of things he had

discovered in the vault. This, of course, only added to the mystery;

nor was Mr. Henley's self-esteem fortified by the memory of how

unscrupulously he had become the guest of these people, and of how

equivocal had been his treatment of their hospitality. All this,

however, related to the past, and, as he felt, could not be now

undone. He must act to the best of his ability in the extraordinary

position in which he found himself.

After breakfast they walked again into the garden, and while Paul

smoked his cigarette, meditatively, Dorothy gathered flowers for the

house. There was an earnestness in everything that she did, quite

unusual in a girl of her age, and at times her manner was grave and

sad, but strangely attractive, nevertheless. When she had completed

her labors in the garden, she came and seated herself beside him.

“Some day, Paul, we'll have a cheerier home than this; won't we?” she

said, looking wistfully up at the quaint old pile before them.

“I don't think we could have a more romantic one,” he answered; and

then, hoping to elicit an explanatory answer, added, “but why should

Guir House not seem cheerful to you?”

“I don't know; it has always been gloomy; don't you think so?”

“Not having known it always, Dorothy, I am not in a position to

judge; but it will always be the sweetest place on earth to me,

because I met you here for the first time.”

“Yes, I know; but you must not forget your promise.”

She seemed nervous and anxious concerning his fulfillment of it.

“And do you suppose that I could ever forget anything you asked me?

No, Dorothy, while you will it, I am your slave; but, as I told you

before, you exert such a strange power over me that you could make me

hate and fear you. I don't know why this should be so, but I feel

it!”

“Hush!” she said, extending her outstretched hand toward his mouth;

“do not talk in that way; you frighten me; for, O Paul! I was just

beginning to hope that in you I had found a friend who would never

shrink away from me. Do not tell me that you will ever become afraid

of me like the others. I could not bear it.”

“I shrink! God forbid,” he answered, “but tell me why are other

people afraid of you? You mystify me.”

“Because I am different--so different from them!”

“I'm quite sure of that,” he replied, “else I should never have come

to love you within an hour of meeting you.”

She did not smile; she did not even look up at him, but sat gazing at

nothing, with countenance as solemn and imperturbable as that of a

Sphinx.

“How am I ever to understand you, Dorothy, you seem such a riddle?”

said Paul presently.

“You will never understand me,” she answered with a sigh, “No one

ever has understood me, and you will be just like the rest!”

“But you will never let me be afraid of you, like the others, will

you?” he exclaimed half in earnest.

“I don't know; others are; why should not you be?”

She was still staring into vacancy, with her hands clasped, and Paul

thought he detected a little, just a little, of the same expression

he had seen in the portrait. He started, and Dorothy saw him.

“What is the matter?” she inquired, looking around at him for the

first time.

“Nothing; only you looked so dreadfully in earnest, you startled me.”

“But surely you would not be startled by so simple a thing as that!”

“Why not? I am only human,” he answered.

“Yes, but I am sure there was something else. Now tell me, was there

not?”

“Why, how strangely you talk!” he replied, searching her face for an

explanation. “Of course there wasn't; why should there be?”

She leaned back, apparently still in doubt as to his assertion, while

her countenance grew even more grave than before. Henley was puzzled,

and while Dorothy had not ceased to charm him, he was conscious of a

very slight uneasiness in her presence. This, however, wore off a

little later when they went together for a stroll in the forest. The

girl's extreme delicacy of appearance, her abstracted, melancholy

manner, and sincerity of expression, both attracted and perplexed

Paul, and kept him constantly at work endeavoring to solve her

character and form some conception of the mystery of her life. He had

not yet had even the courage to ask her if Ah Ben were her father,

dreading to expose himself as an impostor and be ordered from the

place, which, despite his discovery of the previous night, he could

only regard as an unmitigated hardship in the present state of his

feelings; and so he had let the hours slip by, constantly hoping that

something would occur to explain the whole situation to him. And yet

nothing had occurred, and now upon the third day he was as grossly

ignorant of the causes which had produced his strange environment as

at the moment of his arrival.

“One thing I do not understand,” Paul observed, as they wandered over

the vari-colored leaves, side by side; “it is why you should be so

anxious to leave this ideal spot.”

“Have I not told you that it is because I am out of my element;

because I am avoided; because I have not a friend far nor near! Oh,

Paul, you do not know what it is to be alone in the world!”

“And do you believe that a simple change of locality would alter all

this?” he asked.

She paused for a moment before answering, and then, looking down upon

the ground, said as if with some effort:

“No, not that alone.”

“What then, Dorothy?” he asked with solicitude.

“I have already told you,” she replied without looking up. “Oh, Paul,

what a short memory you must have!”

“Of course I understand that we are to be married,” he responded

hastily, “but how can that alter the situation? Dorothy, if we have

not found congenial friends in that position in life in which God or

nature has placed us, how can we hope to make them in another? Do you

not think there may be some deeper reason than simple locality and

single blessedness? Would it not be natural to look for the cause in

the individual?”

“Undoubtedly you are right,” she answered, “but your premises do not

apply to my case, for neither God nor nature ever intended that I

should live this life. Oh, Paul, believe me when I tell you that I

know whereof I speak. Do not judge me as you would another; some day

you may know, but I can not tell you now.”

She spoke pleadingly, as imploring to be released from some awful

incubus which it was impossible to explain. Paul listened in deep

perplexity, and swore that the powers of heaven and earth should

never come between them. So different was she from any girl that he

had ever seen, that her very eccentricity bound him to her with a

magic spell. When he had again asked her if Ah Ben would oppose their

marriage, or indeed if any one else would, she declared that no human

being would raise a voice against it.

“Then what is to hinder us?” he asked; “I am poor, but I can support

you; not perhaps in such luxury as you are accustomed to, but I can

give you a home; and if you are so unhappy here, why submit to

unnecessary delay?”

He had become impassioned and enthused by the girl's strange

influence over him.

“True, Paul, there are none to hinder us,” she replied seriously,

“that is, no one but--but--”

She paused, not knowing how to proceed.

“Then there is some one,” cried Paul earnestly. “I thought as much.

Who might the gentleman be?”

“Yourself!” exclaimed Dorothy, her eyes still fixed upon the ground.

“Myself!” shouted he in amazement. “Do you mean to say that I should

oppose my own marriage with the girl I love?”

“You might,” she answered demurely, casting a side glance up at him,

and allowing the very faintest, saddest kind of smile to rest for an

instant upon her face.

“Well!” said Paul, “I do not suppose you will explain what you mean,

but it would be only natural that I should like to know.”

“I only mean,” she replied, resuming her meditative attitude, “that

you do not know me; that you neither know who nor what I am. If I did

not love you, I might deceive and entrap you, but not under the

circumstances.”

Later they returned to the house.

7

It was not until Mr. Henley had made another and longer visit to the

dark room that he became convinced beyond all doubt that the work of

sealing up the place had been done from within, and that there was,

and had been, no other outlet but that through which he had entered.

To suppose that the main wall of the house had been closed in at a

later period would be preposterous, and for manifest reasons. His

examination of the room's interior had been most thorough and

exhaustive. The place was smoothly plastered upon the inside, and

even the mason's trowel had been found upon the floor within, so that

it became at once evident that those who had done the work had been

self-immured. Although the reason for such an act was utterly beyond

his comprehension, Paul felt a certain satisfaction in having reached

this conclusion, as it showed the impossibility of Dorothy's being in

any way implicated in the affair. It seemed even possible that she

was ignorant of it. But this discovery in no wise lessened the

mystery; it rather increased it.

A few evenings after Paul's decision regarding the self-immurement of

those discovered in the vault, he and Ah Ben were again enjoying

their pipes by the great fireplace in the hall. The elder man was

generally disposed to conversation at this hour; and after Dorothy

had retired, Paul alluded to the strange scene he had witnessed

through the chimney, and expressed a desire to learn something of

occultism. Taking his long-stemmed pipe from his lips, the old man

gazed earnestly into the fire. He seemed to be thinking of what to

say, and to be drawing inspiration from the glowing embers and

dancing flames before him. At last he spoke:

“Occultism, Mr. Henley, is difficult--nay, almost impossible--to

explain to a layman; or if explained, remains incomprehensible; and

yet a child may acquire its secrets by its individual efforts.

Spiritual power comes to those who seek it in proper mood, but,

injudiciously exercised, may cause insanity.”

“Nevertheless,” urged Paul, “if you won't consider me a trifler, I

should like to see a further manifestation of the power.”

Ah Ben looked at him compassionately.

“Pardon me, Mr. Henley,” he said, “but it is not always well to

gratify our curiosity upon such a subject; but if you seriously wish

it, and can believe in me as an honest and honorable custodian of the

power, and will prepare yourself for a serious mental shock, I will

show you something.”

“Before proceeding,” said Paul, “I should like to ask you a question.

Was the room I saw through the chimney a real room? I mean had it any

material existence upon earth?”

“Most assuredly. It was a scene in my early childhood, and originated

in the Valley of the Jhelum, in the Punjab. The officer and lady were

my parents. It was the last time I ever saw them. I was the boy.”

“May I ask how it is possible to reproduce a scene so long passed out

of existence, and which took place so many thousand miles away?”

“Easily told, but not so easily understood by one whose mind has

never been trained to think in these occult channels,” answered the

elder man; “for to understand the thing at all, you must first divest

your mind of time and space as outside entities, for these are in

reality but modes of thought, and have only such value as we give

them. India, doubtless, seems very far to you, but to one whose

powers of will have been sufficiently developed, it is no farther

than the wall of this room. So it is with time. How can we see that

which no longer exists? But a little reflection will show us that

even on the physical plane we see that which does not exist every day

of our lives. Look at the stars. The light by which some of them are

recognized has been millions of years in transit, so that we do not

behold them as they are tonight, but as they were at that remote

period of time; meanwhile they may have been wrecked and scattered in

meteoric dust.”

“But that is hardly an explanation of the scene referred to,”

answered Paul. “Whenever I direct my eyes in the right quarter, the

stars are visible; whether they be actually there or not, they are

there to me; but not so with the vision of the room. In my normal

condition there is no room there, while in my normal condition the

stars are always there.”

“True, and because your normal condition is sympathetically attuned

to the vibrations of starlight. Your consciousness is located in your

brain, and so long as those vibrations continue to strike with

sufficient force upon the optic nerve, you will be conscious of the

light. But suppose the machinery of your body were finer--suppose

your senses were absolutely in accord with those vibratory movements,

instead of only partially so--do you not know that the starlight

would reveal far more than it now does? Then you would see not only

the light, but the scenes that are carried in the light, but which by

reason of their obtuseness can not penetrate your senses. Were this

improvement in men really achieved, our conceptions of time and space

would be modified, and the condition of other worlds as plainly seen

as our own.”

“Yes,” said Paul, determined to follow up the original question, “but

what of a scene that occurred in this world some years ago, and whose

light vibrations would require but the fraction of a second to reach

our point of consciousness--no matter where situated on earth--and

which vibrations have long since passed beyond the reach of man, and

been lost in infinite space?”

“Nothing is ever lost, and infinite space is but a phase of infinite

mind. All that is necessary to review such a picture is to change our

point of consciousness from the brain to a point in space or _mind_,

where the vibratory movement is still in progress. In other words, to

overtake the scene by transposing our consciousness. Granted these

powers, which are born of the soul, and we may behold any event in

history with the clearness of its original force. Man is mind, and

mind is one; but all mind is not self-conscious. The consciousness of

mind is in spots, as it were, and here its consciousness is fixed in

a spot called brain, where with most men it remains until the will,

or some abnormal condition or the event called death, liberates it

from its prison. You believe that with your God, the scenes of

yesterday, to-day, and forever are alike visible?”

“Even admitting all that you say,” answered Paul, “I can not see how

it was that I, who have no such power, could see clearly an event in

your life.”

“Again the power of sympathetic vibration. The scene was reflected

from my mind to yours.”

“But you just now said there was but one mind.”

“Perhaps then it would be more correct to say, from my point of

consciousness to yours; or, to be still more accurate, to say that

the intensity of my thoughts struck a sympathetic chord in yours, and

vibrated through you as one consciousness. Without undue familiarity,

Mr. Henley, I have found in you a responsive temperament. There are

few men I can not influence, and with some the effort is trifling.”

Paul was interested, and sat quietly reflecting upon what he had

heard. Naturally the ideas were not so clear as they would have been

had he given more thought to the conditions of spirituality, which

for so many years had been a part of Ah Ben's existence, and which

state was as familiar to him as the body in which he appeared. Time

and reflection alone, as this strange man had declared, could bring

one to comprehend and realize a condition of existence so totally

differing from that of our material plane. The inability of language

to express that of which we have no parallel, and of which we can not

conceive, is a grave obstacle to our understanding; but the man was

ever ready to exert himself to make the matter clear when he found

his listener interested.

“If I am not tiring you,” continued Paul, “I should like to call your

attention to another point. You said that nothing was absolute; that

all was relative; and yet when it comes to fixed measures, I think

you must admit that this is not so. For example, a mile is a mile,

and a mile must always be a mile under every conceivable condition.

Am I not right?”

“At first thought it would seem so,” answered Ah Ben. “A mile

certainly appears to be an absolute unchanging quantity of so many

feet, which must always and under every circumstance affect us in the

same way; and yet a little reflection will show that this can not be

so, and that a mile, after all, is only fixed so long as our mind is

fixed. In other words, it is a mental conception, and relative to

other mental conceptions. Let us, for example, suppose that the world

and all its contents, and, in fact, the entire universe, were exactly

twice as large as it is, the mile would then be twice as long as it

is now; and that which we _now_ call a mile would only make the

impression of half as much distance as it now does. And so with all

material conditions; I say _material_, for in the spiritual life we

see these things more truly as they are, and not as they appear.

There is but one class of facts which is absolute. I speak of the

emotions. These are the realities of life--the soul qualities. Could

we measure _love_, _hate_, or _happiness_, the standard would be

fixed.”

“Do not forget your promise to show me something more of your power

in the region of occultism,” said Henley, “for I am greatly

interested.”

“I will keep my word, but I warn you to prepare for a shock!”

“I am ready, and should like nothing better than to witness an

example of your greatest power!”

The old man looked solemn, and then slowly answered:

“You shall be gratified. It is now past midnight. Dorothy is asleep,

and it is a fitting time. If you will follow me to my own room, I

will show you a mystery.”

For a moment Paul hesitated. The thought of following this strange

man at such an hour into the realm of the unknown, to investigate the

supernatural, was uncanny, and he half wished he had not made the

request. He knew the man to be no trifler. That which he promised, he

would surely perform. Then, procuring a candle, Ah Ben led the way.

They walked along the narrow passage at the rear, Ah Ben stopping to

close the door quietly behind them. They then mounted a still

narrower stairway at the back, Paul following closely. Presently they

entered a passage which led in the opposite direction from Henley's

bedchamber, and then, turning sharply to the right, found a narrow

hallway which terminated in a door. Here the men stopped.

“I am going to take you into my sanctum, and you must not be

surprised if you find things different from the ordinary. The

circumstances of my life have set me apart from most men; and if my

surroundings are at variance with theirs, you must set it down to

these facts.”

Here he opened the door.

The room was lighted with the same lamp that Paul had seen through

the chimney. There were odd-looking things, such as a skeleton with

artificial eyes; a glass manikin with a reddish fluid that meandered

through his body in thread-like streams; a horoscope and a globe,

suspended from the ceiling, with the signs of the Zodiac. Various old

parchments, covered with quaint cabalistic figures, were tacked

against the walls. In a cabinet, embellished with hieroglyphics,

stood another human form, a mummy wonderfully preserved.

“Here we are alone,” said Ah Ben; “it is the quietest hour of the

night, and therefore we are least apt to be disturbed.”

“And what do you propose?” asked Paul with a misgiving he was loth to

admit.

“Whatever you may desire, Mr. Henley; for you must know that which is

born of spirit is not subject to the restrictions of matter. But

remember that all is natural; there is no supernatural, and therefore

no cause for alarm.”

Ah Ben led the way to the window, and having drawn aside the curtain,

threw up the sash. To Henley's amazement they walked directly through

the open casement and found themselves upon a broad stone terrace in

the glaring light of day. Beneath them lay a city of marvelous

beauty, whose streets were lined with palaces, surrounded by their

own parks, and whose inhabitants were walking in and about the shaded

thoroughfares, or resting in the public seats beside them. The change

was so sudden, so bewildering, that Paul drew back, his hand pressed

against his head; whereupon Ah Ben took him by the arm and said:

“There is nothing here to alarm you. Come, let us descend these

steps, and walk through the town!”

The voice and touch of the man reassured him.

Walking down the broad stone steps, they found themselves in a noble

avenue lined with trees and adorned with sparkling fountains.

Everywhere the people looked happy. There was neither hurry nor

effort, but the grandest monuments to human action were visible upon

every hand. Such palaces of dazzling marble; such lace-like carvings

in stone; such noble terraces and gardens; and open to all the world

alike.

“See,” said Ah Ben, “the people here are of one mind. There is no

wrangling nor struggling for place. These palaces are the property of

the public; and why should they not be, since man's unity is

understood? Exclusiveness is the result of ignorance, but privacy and

seclusion may even be better enjoyed in the conditions prevailing

here than in our own state of existence, and because of the unlimited

power and material to draw upon. No man can crowd another after he

has come to realize that all is mind, and that mind is infinite.”

“But where is Guir House, and the estate?” inquired Paul, feeling as

if the whole thing were an incomprehensible illusion.

“They have not been disturbed,” the old man answered. “They are where

they always were, _in the minds of those who perceive them, and upon

whose plane they exist_.”

“It is too utterly bewildering. These things appear as real as any I

ever saw.”

“Appear! They _are as real_. Let us go into one of these bazars, and

see what the people are doing.”

They turned through an open doorway resplendent with burnished metal

and sculpture to where great corridors, halls, and galleries, stocked

with properties and merchandise of every description, were crowded

with people. No one was in attendance; and those who came and went,

carried with them what they pleased. No money was passed, nor did

compensation of any kind seem forthcoming. “If anything strikes your

fancy, take it,” said Ah Ben. “All things here are free, and yet

everything is paid for.”

Paul asked for an explanation, which Ah Ben gave as follows:

“The city before you is located in the year 3,000, more than a

thousand years in advance of our time. It is called _Levachan_, and

will appear upon earth about 700 years hence; in about four hundred

years from which time it will attain the size and splendor you now

behold. We here see it in its spiritual state, which precedes and

follows all material forms. It will begin its descent into matter,

through the minds of physical man, about the time I have mentioned.

It is merely a type of a class toward which we are tending, and I

show it to you that you may see the vast strides we shall have made

by that time. In the state of society in which we find ourselves,

compensation is made by a system of absolute freedom in exchange.

Here, if a man wants a coat, he takes it, and the owner reimburses

himself from the great reservoir of the world's goods, which is open

to all men as integral parts of a unit.”

“What check have you upon the unreasoning rapacity of a thief, who

will take ten times as much as he requires?”

“The system operates directly against the development of that trait.

Here, men are only too anxious to have their goods admired and taken;

for, being certain of their own maintenance, they feel a pride in

contributing to that of others, and there is no temptation to take

that which can not be kept, since his neighbor has equal right to

take from him an idle surplus. Here the laws are the reverse of ours,

for here a man is encouraged in the taking, but never in the holding.

Wealth is measured by what a man disburses; hence all are anxious to

part with their individual property for the advancement of the

commonwealth, knowing that the _one_ can only thrive when the many

are prosperous.”

They continued their walk amid the marvelous wealth that surrounded

them. There were fabrics of untold value; jewels of indescribable

splendor; men, women, and children with strangely eager faces. They

seated themselves upon revolving chairs in the midst of a great space

to watch the glittering show.

“But tell me what it all means,” inquired Paul. “I feel as if it were

a dream, and yet I am absolutely certain that it is not.”

“You are right; it is not a dream. Levachan is as real as New York,

Boston, or Chicago, although invisible to men of earth. Its

inhabitants are as conscious of their existence as you and I are of

ours. They are quite as alive to their history and probable destiny

as any well educated citizen of America or Europe.”

“But where is Guir House, and all it contained?” repeated Henley,

unable to understand.

“Nothing has been changed by this any more than if you were in your

bed dreaming it all. But to you it is incomprehensible, as I told you

it would be, because your mind has never been trained to think in

these realms.”

“No,” answered Paul, turning uneasily in his chair, dazed by the

marvelous pageant that moved constantly about them. “No, I admit that

it has not, and that the whole thing is utterly beyond me; and this,

none the less, because I am aware that one of the fundamental facts

of nature is that two things can not occupy the same space at the

same time. My previous education, instead of helping me, makes the

situation more difficult. The Guir estate and this city can not both

be here at once; of that I am sure.”

“That is a mere assumption on the part of materialists,” answered

Ah Ben. “Not only two things, but ten million things, can occupy the

same space at the same time; for what is space, and what is time?

They are mental conditions, as are all the phenomena of nature.

Even your scientist will tell you that the infinite ether penetrates

all substances, and that cast-steel or a diamond contains as much

of this mysterious element as any other space of equal size. The

varying vibrations of this ether, or universal akasa, make the world

and all that is in it; and these vibrations are interpenetrable and

non-obstructive. Even on the material plane we see how the vibrations

of light and heat penetrate those of visible and tangible substance,

and how, in your more recent discoveries, light rays penetrate solid

metals formerly called opaque. When I say that these vibrations are

interpenetrable and non-obstructive, the statement must be taken as

approximating the truth, and not as a finality, independent of all

conditions; for by the power of the will, or as a result of mental

habit, a man may either exclude or admit to his consciousness the

thought vibrations of others. But you may set it down as a fundamental

fact that there is nothing or no condition of which the mind can

conceive that may not become an objective reality, which is the

creative faculty in all of us. This city is here to us just as really

and actually as were the trees of Guir forest a short time ago. By

opening our inward sight, and putting ourselves in accord with another

vibratory plane of existence, we are in full _rapport_ with a condition

that makes no impression upon the members of the sleeping world not so

impressed.”

“But we left the house at midnight, and here we are in the broad

light of day. Do you mean to tell me that the mind controls the sun

itself? The thing is so astounding that I feel as if I were losing my

reason.”

“And did I not tell you that it was unwise to gratify curiosity in

this realm when unprepared by a long course of training? But let me

quote you a few words from one of our greatest philosophers”; and Ah

Ben quoted the following from Franz Hartman's “Magic, White and

Black”:

“Visible man is not all there is of man, but is surrounded by an

invisible mental atmosphere, comparable to the pulp surrounding the

seed in a fruit; but this light, or atmosphere, or pulp, is the

mind of man, an organized ocean of spiritual substance, wherein all

things exist. If man were conscious of his own greatness, he would

know that within himself exist the sun and the moon and the starry

sky and every object in space, because his true self is God; and

God is without limits.”

“These thoughts are utterly beyond me,” said Paul uneasily.

“As I told you they would be,” replied Ah Ben, turning his chair and

looking at his pupil with a kindly expression; and then, with his

usual earnestness, he added: “But they will not be so always.”

“And you tell me that these things are actually as real as the

furniture in Guir House?” inquired Henley.

“Quite!” answered the guide. “Test them for yourself. Do you not see

this magnificent dome above our heads, supported upon these wonderful

pillars? Try them, touch them, strike them with your hand. Are they

not solid? Apply every test in your power to their reality; they will

not fail you in one--and, let me ask, what further evidence have you

of the furniture of which you speak? Thought is real; and the man who

can hold to his thought long enough endows it with objectivity.”

“It is a mystery involving mysteries,” sighed Paul; “and I could

never even ask the questions that are crowding into my mind.”

“So it is with all life,” the old man replied thoughtfully, pressing

his hand against his forehead as he gazed into the brilliant scene

without seeming to look at anything especial; “and so it is with all

life,” he repeated in a minute; “it is a mystery involving mysteries!

What are dreams? Give them a little more intensity, as in the case of

the somnambule or clairvoyant, and they are real. The trouble is, Mr.

Henley, that few of us ever come to realize that life itself is a

dream; and when science recognizes that fact, many of the

difficulties she now encounters will vanish. Let me repeat a few

lines from the Song Celestial, or _Bhagavad Gita_.

“Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;

Never was time it was not; end and beginning are dreams,

Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever;

Death has not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems.

“These thoughts are better understood in the East,” continued Ah Ben,

“where the people give less time to _religion_ and more to the

_philosophy_ of life. And what are dreams but a part of our inner

existence? None the less mysterious because we are so familiar with

them. There are numerous authenticated records of dreams that have

carried a man through an apparently long life, but which have really

occupied less than a second of time as counted with us; through all

the minutiae and details of youth, courtship, marriage, a military

career, war with all its horrors, the details of the last battle

where death was inevitable, and where the last shot was fired and

heard that brought the great change--of _awakening_, and the sudden

perception that the entire phantasmagoria had been caused by the

slamming of the door, which the exhausted sleeper had only that

second opened as he dropped into a chair beside it. The facts in this

case are proven; no perceptible time having elapsed. Time--time is

nothing. Time is only what we make it. An hour in a dungeon might be

an eternity, while a million years in the Levachan of the Hindoo

would seem but a summer's day.”

8

Continuing their walk, they followed an avenue of dazzling beauty,

which led to a green hill overlooking the town, upon which stood a

temple of transcendent splendor. The sunlight flashed upon its marble

walls and _chevaux de frise_ of minarets. Paul was filled with

amazement, and demanded an explanation.

“Let us climb the hill and see for ourselves,” answered his guide,

leading the way.

Crowds of people passed in and out through the open portals of the

temple; and when sufficiently near, Paul read the inscription above

the principal entrance:

“_In Commemoration of the Birth of Human Liberty_.”

“I am as puzzled as ever,” he declared, with a look of resignation.

“It is the most stupendous and remarkable edifice I ever beheld!”

They passed up by a marble terrace and entered the building through

an archway so wide and lofty that it might have spanned many ordinary

houses. Windows of jeweled glass scattered a thousand tints over

walls and columns of barbaric splendor, where encrusted gems of every

hue, scintillating with strange fires, were grouped in dazzling

mosaics portraying historic scenes in endless pageant. It was a

miracle of art and trembling iridescence. White pillars, set with

jewels, rose and branched above their heads like the spreading boughs

of gigantic trees. The throng of humanity surged hither and thither,

and yet so vast was the nave of the temple that nowhere was it

crowded. Paul clung closely to his comrade's arm, fearful lest his

only friend in this strange world should be lost to him. On they

walked; Ah Ben having an air of long familiarity with the scene,

while Paul was dazed and bewildered. Occasionally they would stop to

examine some object of special interest or to take in with

comprehensive view the marvels surrounding them. But the temple was

too grand, too glorious for a hasty appreciation of its wonders.

Entering an elevator, they ascended to the roof and stepped out upon

a mosaic pavement of transparent tiles. Looking over the parapet,

they beheld a country of vast extent, where field, forest, and

watercourse combined in a landscape of rare beauty. Beneath lay the

marble city with its palaces, parks, and fountains. In the distance

were shadowy hills and gleaming lights; and above, a sky whose

singular purity was reflected over all. The height was great, but the

roof so extensive that it seemed more like some elevated plateau than

a part of a building. A multitude of spires rose upon every side like

inverted icicles, and Paul was amazed to discover an inscription at

the base of each.

“I have a distinct impression of the meaning,” he said, looking up at

his guide; “but how, I can not tell.”

“Yes,” answered the old man solemnly, “you now perceive that this

stupendous temple commemorates the birth of liberty, or the death of

superstitions, and the consequent liberation of the human mind from

the slavery of false belief. The temple itself is a monument to the

whole, while each minaret commemorates the downfall of some

scientific dogma, and the consequent release of the human mind from

its thralldom. The limit of man's power over his environment has been

extended again and again; and even in your day, Mr. Henley, you have

witnessed such marvelous advances as have adduced the aphorism, that

this is an age of miracles. We speak from one end of the continent to

the other. We sit in New York and sign our name to a check in

Chicago. We reproduce a horse race or any athletic sport just as it

occurred with every movement to the slightest detail, so that all men

can see it in any part of the world at any time quite as well as if

present at the original performance. We photograph our thoughts and

those of our friends. We reproduce the voices of the departed. We

commune with each other without the intervention of wires. We have

lately pictured the human soul in its various phases. We see plainly

through iron plates many inches in thickness, and look directly into

the human body. Our food and precious stones are made in the

laboratory, and a syndicate of scientists has recently been formed

for the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. When man can

produce food, clothing, and all the precious metals at will; when he

can see what is occurring at a distance without the necessity of

lugging about a cumbersome piece of machinery like his body--when all

these and many other discoveries have been brought to perfection, the

farmer and manufacturer may cease their labors. The necessity for war

will no longer exist, as the righting of wrongs, the acquisition of

territory, and the payment of debt will not demand it. But all these

things and many more, Mr. Henley, will be brought to perfection

before the liberation of man shall have been effected, which will be

when he comes to understand that, with proper training and the

ultimate development of self-control, there is no limit to his power.

As I have told you before, self-control is the secret of all power.

The day is not distant when the dogmas of science will be set aside

for the spirit of philosophic inquiry. Then men will no longer say

that they have reached the goal of human capacity or that they can

not usurp the prerogative of the gods, for it will be known that we

are all gods!”

Later they descended to the ground and passed into the superb public

gardens of the city. Seating themselves beside one of the numerous

fountains sparkling with colored waters and perfumed with strange

aquatic plants, they watched the brilliant scene that surrounded

them. Aerial chariots flashed above, and men, women, and children

moved through the air entirely regardless of the law of gravitation.

Occasionally a passer-by would nod to Ah Ben, who returned the salute

familiarly, as if in recognition of an old friend; but no one stopped

to talk.

“And you know some of these people!” cried Paul in astonishment.

“Some of them.” But a look of intense sadness had settled upon the

old man's face, quite different from anything Henley had seen. For a

moment neither spoke, and then Ah Ben, passing the back of his hand

across his forehead, said: “Yes, Mr. Henley, I know them, but I am

not of them; and as you see, they shun me.”

“I can not understand why that should be,” answered Paul, who was

conscious of a growing attachment for his guide.

“I can not explain; but some day, perhaps, you may know. Let us

continue our walk.”

Looking up at the marvelous examples of architecture that surrounded

them, Paul observed that many of the houses had no windows, and

inquired the reason.

“Windows and doors are here only a matter of taste, and not of

necessity,” answered the elder man; “the denizens of Levachan enter

their houses wherever they please without experiencing the slightest

obstruction. Likewise light and air are not here confined to special

material and apertures for their admission. We are only just

beginning to discover some of the possibilities of matter upon our

plane of existence. Here these things are understood; for matter and

spirit are one, their apparent difference lying in us.”

“Yes,” said Paul, “and I perceive that the inhabitants move from

place to place through the upper atmosphere in defiance of all law!”

“Law, Mr. Henley, is the operation of man's will. Where man through

uncounted eons of time has believed himself the slave of matter, it

becomes his master. I mean that the belief enslaves him, and not

until he has worked his way out of the false belief, will he become

free.”

They continued their walk through gardens of bewitching beauty, and

amid lights so far transcending any previous experience of Henley's

that he no longer even tried to comprehend Ah Ben's labored

explanations. At last his guide, turning, abruptly said:

“Come, let us return; the time is growing short!”

“Time!” said Henley, with an amused expression. “I thought you told

me that time was only a mental condition!”

“True, I did,” said Ah Ben, with a return of the same inexpressibly

sad look; “but did I tell you that it had ceased to belong to me?”

There was no intimation of reproof, no endeavor to evade the remark;

but Paul could not but observe the change in the man's manner as they

retraced their steps. Indeed, he was conscious of an overpowering

sadness himself, as he turned his back upon the strange scene.

“Come!” said Ah Ben, with authority, leading the way.

They passed up the grand stairway to the terrace, entering the room

at the same window by which they had left it, and Ah Ben closed the

sash and drew the curtains behind them.

A moment later Paul went to the window and looked out. There was an

old moon, and the forest beneath lay bathed in its mellow light. The

sudden transition to his former state was no less astounding than the

first.

“Which, think you, is the most real,” asked the old man, “the scene

before us now, or the one we have left behind?”

Paul could not answer. He was revolving in his mind the marvels he

had just witnessed. He could not understand how hypnotism could have

created such a world as he had just beheld. It was not a whit less

tangible, visible, or audible than that in which he had always lived,

and he could not help looking upon Ah Ben as a creature far removed

from his own sphere of life. How had the man acquired such powers?

These and other thoughts were rushing through his mind. Presently his

host touched him lightly upon the shoulder, and said:

“Come, let us descend into the hall again, and finish our pipes.”

And so they wandered back through the silent house to the old pew by

the fire; and Ah Ben, stirring up the embers and adding fresh fuel,

said:

“Although it is late, Mr. Henley, I do not feel inclined for bed; and

if you are of the same mind, should be glad of your company.”

Paul was glad of an excuse to sit up, and so settled himself upon the

sofa, absorbed in meditation. The firelight flickered over their

faces and the strange pictures on the wall, and the head of Tsong

Kapa shone more plainly than ever before. The portraits on the stairs

were as weird and incomprehensible as they had appeared on the first

night of his arrival; and the old man and the girl, and their strange

life, seemed even more deeply involved in mystery than they had upon

that occasion. Paul was now beset with conflicting emotions. The

gloom of the house was more oppressive than before; and were it not

for his sudden and unaccountable affection for Dorothy, he might have

left it at once, had it not again been for the vision of splendor and

happiness just faded from his sight. He could not bear the thought of

losing forever the sensation of life and power and ecstasy just

beginning to dawn upon him, when so cruelly snatched away; and but

for Ah Ben he knew he should hope in vain for its return. Naturally,

his emotions were strong and tearing him in opposite directions. The

old man perceiving the depression of spirits into which his guest had

fallen, reminded him gently of his warning regarding the shock of

occult manifestation to those who were unprepared.

“It is not that so much,” answered Paul, “as the regret I feel at

having left it all behind. When a man has only just begun to

experience the sensation of life--_of real life_--to find himself

suddenly plunged back into a dungeon with chains upon his shoulders,

you must admit the shock is terrible.”

“Do I not know it?” answered the old man feelingly. “The return is

far more to be dreaded than the escape into that life which you were

at first inclined to call unreal; and yet, Mr. Henley, you must admit

that it is difficult to decide the question of reality between the

two worlds.”

“True,” answered Paul; “and yet I know that what I have just seen can

be nothing else than a hypnotic vision; it is impossible it should be

otherwise, for it has gone--and beyond my power to recall. What

amazes me to the point of stupefaction is the marvelous impression of

truth with which hypnotism can fill one. I had always imagined the

effect was more in the nature of a dream, but this was vivid, sharp,

and perfect as the everyday life about me. I am more bewildered than

I have words to express.”

“And yet,” answered Ah Ben, “you still insist that the things you saw

were unreal, because, as you say, they were the result of hypnotism.

It seems difficult to convince you of what I have already told you,

that hypnotism is not a cause of hallucination, but of fact. You

insist that because the minority of men only are subjected to

hypnotic tests, the impressions produced must be false. You will not

admit that a minority has any claim to a hearing, although their

evidence is based upon precisely the same testimony as that of the

majority--namely, the five senses. You have no better right to assume

that your present surroundings are any more truthfully reported by

your senses than those of your recent experience. You see, you hear

and touch; did you not do the same in Levachan?”

“I did, indeed,” answered Paul, “and with a clearness that makes it

the more difficult to comprehend; still, of course, I know that the

vision of Levachan was a deception, while this is real!”

“And because you are convinced that a majority of men would see this

as you see it. What if it should be proved that you are wrong?”

“That would be impossible,” answered Paul.

“You think so, indeed,” answered the old man with a strange look in

his eyes; “and yet, if you will look above you and about you, you

will see for the first time the way in which this old house looks to

the great majority of mankind--indeed, to such a vast majority, Mr.

Henley--that your individual testimony to the contrary would be

regarded as the ravings of a madman. Look!”

Paul lifted his eyes. The roof was gone, and the stars shone down

upon him through the open space. About him were rough walls of

crumbling stone, rapidly falling to decay; there were no pictures,

there were no stairs with their uncanny portraits, there was no great

open fire-place with the blazing logs, nor hanging lamp, nor cheery

pew--all--all was gone--and nothing but ruin and decay remained, save

some bunches of ivy which had climbed above the edge of the tottering

wall, outlined dimly in the moonlight. The floor had rotted away, and

dank grass and bushes and heaps of stone had filled its place. A pool

of water in a distant corner reflected the sky and a star or two, and

the dismal croaking of a frog was the only sound he heard. Through

the open casements wild vines and stunted trees had thrust their

boughs, and beyond were the pines and hemlocks. Paul stood erect, and

stared around him in blank amazement. Where was Ah Ben? He too had

departed with the rest. Dazed and wondering, Henley sauntered toward

the door, or rather to where the door had once stood, now only an

open portal of crumbling stone, from the crevices of which grew

bushes and a tangled network of vines. Climbing down over a mass of

fallen bricks, he wandered out into the grounds. The lawn was buried

beneath a confused jumble of rubbish and weeds, and the forest

encroached upon its rights. The graveled road was no longer visible,

wild grass, moss, and piles of fallen stone having covered it far

below. As he looked above, the moon shone through the casement of a

ruined window, and an owl hooted dismally from the open belfry. The

old house was a wreck, a tottering ruin, from whatever point he

looked; and no room above or below seemed habitable. He walked around

to see if the blank wall which guarded the secret chamber was still

intact. Yes, there it was; it alone remained untouched by the ravages

of time or war. The portraits and human remains were probably safe in

their hiding place, and Paul shuddered at the thought. What hand had

bound them up in that strange old corner to be hid forever from the

eyes of men? He had heard no human word, nor was there apparently any

shelter where man or woman could live. Presently amid the deep

shadows of the forest something moved. It came nearer, and then from

beneath the trees walked out into the moonlight. Paul started; but at

the same moment a familiar voice spoke to him. It was Ah Ben's.

“Do not let what you see alarm you, Mr. Henley, for it is the first

time in which you have perceived Guir House in what you would call

its normal state. As you now behold it, the majority of men would see

it.”

“Then I have been duped ever since my arrival!” exclaimed Paul in a

slightly irritated tone.

“Not at all,” answered the elder man complacently. “I have simply

presented the house to you as it stood a hundred years ago. The

impression you have had of it is quite as truthful as the one now

before you. Indeed, it is as truthful as the view you now have of

yonder star,” he pointed to a twinkling luminary in the north; “for

time has put out its fires more than a thousand years ago, so that

you now behold it as it then was, and not as it is to-night.”

“This hypnotism of yours is quite undoing me,” answered Paul, passing

his hand across his eyes.

“And yet what you now behold is not hypnotism at all, but fact, as

the world would call it. It is what the vast majority of all men

would see if here to-night. But I perceive that it is troubling you.

Let us return to our old place by the fire, and the house as it was a

century ago. In that state of the past I think you will find more

comfort than in the melancholy ruin before us.”

They climbed back over the fallen piles of bricks, stone, and mortar;

and then Ah Ben lifted his withered hand, and touching Henley lightly

upon the forehead, said:

“And now we are back in our old seats, just as they used to be in the

days of yore!”

Paul looked about him. The fire was burning brightly. The pictures

had been restored to their places on the walls. The old lamp and the

strangely decorated staircase were all restored, just as he had left

them a few minutes before. He gazed long and earnestly at the scene

around him, and then fixing his eyes upon Ah Ben, helplessly, said:

“If then I am to understand that this is no longer real, but that the

old ruin just beheld is the existing fact, might I ask in what part

of the wreck you and Miss Guir have been able to fix your abode, for

I saw nothing but crumbling walls--a roofless ruin?”

“The question you ask involves a story, and if you care to listen I

will tell it to you, although the hour is late and the night far

gone.”

“I should enjoy nothing more,” said Paul.

And the men filled and lighted their pipes, and Henley listened while

Ah Ben told him the following:

9

“In the early settlement of this State, an Englishman by the name of

Guir pre-empted a large body of land, near the center of which he

erected this house. Although his intention in coming from the old

country was to make his permanent home in the colony, his reasons for

doing so were quite different from those which usually induce

immigration. Guir was an artist, and a man of some means; and his

object in colonizing was not so much to cultivate the soil, or to

trade with the Indians, or engage in any business enterprise, as to

gratify a craving for nature and surround himself with such scenery

as he loved to paint. It would be folly to pretend that Guir was a

man of ordinary tastes and disposition; for had he been such, he

would never have undertaken a journey, with a family of girls, into

such a wilderness as Virginia was at that time. No; from the very

circumstances of his birth and education, he was unfitted to live

with his countrymen; hence his early adoption of the colony as a home

for himself, wife, and daughters. This happened a hundred and fifty

years ago.”

“He was an ancestor of yours, I presume,” said Paul, hoping to gain

some clew to the man's identity.

“No,” answered Ah Ben, “he was not.”

“Pardon the interruption,” added Paul, fearing he had annoyed the

speaker.

“Naturally, in a country without roads, or even wagon trails,”

continued the old man, without noticing the apology, “it was years

before a house of this size could be completed, as every brick and

nearly every stick of timber was brought from England. These, of

course, were conveyed by water as far as the rivers permitted, the

rest of the journey being performed upon sleds drawn by oxen. But it

was Guir's hobby, and in the course of a dozen or fifteen years the

job was completed, and the house stood as you see it now. Then the

owner set himself to work with brush, canvas, and chisel to decorate

his home, and make it, according to his ideas, as beautiful and

suggestive of his early youth as imaginable. With his own hands, Mr.

Henley, he painted most of these pictures, although his three

daughters, inheriting his tastes, assisted him. And thus, as the

years rolled by, Guir House became more and more a museum of artistic

efforts, embracing many unusual subjects, and in every degree of

perfection. The broad acres of the estate produced much that was

necessary toward the maintenance of life, and what they lacked was

supplied once a year from a distant settlement near the coast. As you

can readily understand, there were no neighbors, and but occasional

visits from the red man, who looked distrustfully upon the pale-face.

This feeling became mutual, and trifling acts of hostility on the

part of the natives grew both in frequency and magnitude.

Depredations upon Guir's fields and cattle were at first ignored, in

the effort to maintain peace, but in time it became necessary to

resist them. Upon one occasion, a raid upon a distant field was

successfully repulsed, with the aid of his wife and three daughters,

attired in men's clothing and mounted upon fast horses. The Indians

were so completely surprised by the ruse, being apparently attacked

by five men, where they had believed there was only one, that they

fled, completely routed, nor did they return for several years.

Meanwhile, fearing another and closer attack, Guir converted one of

the lower rooms of his house into an impenetrable and unassailable

place of refuge. The windows were walled up, to correspond with the

stonework of the house, leaving no suspicion of there having been

once an opening. Likewise the doors were treated, and then carefully

plastered both within and without, with the exception of one, which

he made anew, to communicate with a private stairway leading from one

of the upper bedrooms. This was the only entrance to the dark

retreat, and a heavy bolt was placed upon the inside, to be used by

the family in case of attack. There was no reason to suppose that a

marauding party would ever find the way to this secret chamber, as

the entrance was carefully covered by a scuttle in the floor of a

dark closet; and the place being thoroughly fire-proof, the family

felt unusually secure in the possession of their new retreat.”

“I think I have seen the stairway you speak of,” said Paul.

“Yes,” answered the old man, “it communicates with the closet of your

room.

“One day Guir had left his home. He had ridden alone into the distant

hills to dispute the range for some cattle with his natural enemy,

the red man. The pow-wow had been long and trying, and it was only

with the setting sun that he had come to a proper understanding, as

he supposed, with the ugly chief who dominated the region about.

“It was midnight when he reached his home. He pounded sharply on the

door; but his good wife, who never retired without him, failed to

answer the summons. So, after repeated knocks, Guir forced the door

and entered. All was dark. An unearthly stillness pervaded the air,

and a horrid suspicion forced itself upon him while groping his way

forward to secure a light. Finding the chimney, he raked together a

few coals, which he blew into a flame, and then, with trembling

hands, lighted the candle upon the shelf above. Looking about him,

Guir's heart sank. His house had been wrecked. His pictures, the work

of years, were scattered in fragments about the floor. The windows

were smashed, and the hall starred with broken glass. Not an

ornament, not a treasure remained intact. But this he knew was as

nothing to the horrible sight which he expected momentarily to greet

his eyes. He called aloud to each member of his family, in the

failing hope that some one would answer; but no sound broke the awful

stillness. Suddenly he bethought him of the secret chamber, and with

a wild prayer that his loved ones had been able to reach it in

safety, and were still in hiding there, he started down the narrow

stairs in search. Reaching the bottom, he found that the door had

been wrenched from its hinges and thrown to the ground; and then

Guir's heart sank, never to rise again. Stepping across the threshold

of the room, candle in hand, a vision of blood swam before his eyes,

and the dimly-burning light revealed the horror-stricken faces of his

murdered family. Not one was left to tell the tale, but the story

pictured before him was unmistakable in every detail. The treacherous

natives had first tortured and then butchered them. For a time he

stood transfixed with horror, unable to remove his eyes from the

awful scene, or his feet from the spot where he had first beheld it;

then, with the cry of sudden madness, he threw himself beside the

bleeding corpses and lost all consciousness. How long he remained

there was problematical, but on awaking Guir was still in the dark,

and where he had fallen. At that moment a strange and overpowering

desire seized him. He must paint the portraits of his murdered family

before it became too late. Had he been sane, such a ghastly thought

would never have possessed him; but Guir was crazed, and for days and

nights following he worked in that dismal vault, by the light of a

smoking lamp, at the task he had set himself, his fired imagination

even intensifying the horrors of the grewsome tableau.

“Upon each canvas he depicted the awful countenance which fact and

fancy had imprinted upon his brain. Guir painted not only what he

saw, but what he imagined he saw--dreadful faces, loaded with torture

and despair. When completed, he hung them upon the walls of the room,

and then with his own hands bricked up the entrance from within,

having first carefully replaced and bolted the door. When Guir had

thus entombed himself, he lay down again upon the floor, and then,

still a madman, opened a vein in his wrist. The letting of blood may

have sobered him or restored his mental equilibrium; for suddenly,

with a wild change in his feelings, he bounded to his feet and

repented. Again he was in darkness, and could not guess how much time

had elapsed since his fatal act. Staggering to the closed doorway, he

endeavored to tear away the bricks he had so recently placed there,

but the mortar was hardening fast, and he was unable to find his

trowel. Groping frantically along the floor, he searched in vain for

some tool to open the vault in which he was buried, and then, with

the anguish of despair, dropped again upon the ground to await his

fate. Thus Guir died, in an agony of remorse, and with the intensest

desire to live.”

Ah Ben stopped suddenly, and fixed his eyes upon Henley, as if trying

to read his thoughts.

“There is one thing in that story that strikes me as very peculiar,”

observed Paul, returning his host's look with interest.

“And what is that?” answered the old man, his eyes still fixed on

Henley's face.

“The fact that you are able to repeat with such circumstantial detail

the feelings and actions of a man who died under such peculiar

conditions, and quite alone.”

“It might indeed appear strange to you, Mr. Henley, but my

familiarity with the case enables me to speak with knowledge and

accuracy.”

“And would you mind telling me how that is possible?” inquired Paul.

“_Because I am the man Guir himself; and I have lived on through such

ages of agony that I have no longer the will or desire to appear

other than as the ancient wreck before you_.”

Paul started.

“Do you mean to tell me then that I am talking to a ghost?” he cried

in dismay.

“As you please, Mr. Henley; but ghosts are not so different from

ordinary people--that is, when they have become materialized. I have

just now shown you the real condition of this old house, or rather

the way in which the majority of men see it. I do not hesitate,

therefore, to show you the ghost that haunts it; nor do I object to

explaining the dreadful cause of the haunting, or a little of the

philosophy of hauntings in general.”

Paul looked aghast. Easy enough was it now to comprehend how the man

had talked so familiarly of death and the next life after having

actually crossed the threshold and passed into the realm of

experience. But there was something too real, too natural about this

personality to accept the remark as literal. Familiarity with Ah Ben

had shown him to be a man. Paul felt sure of it. And yet here were

revealed mysteries never dreamed of; one of which was even now

producing an occult spell. Henley drew a deep breath in agony of

spirit.

After a moment's pause, the old man continued:

“Ghosts, Mr. Henley, are as real as you; and when a spirit returns to

earth in visible form, it is the result of some disquieting influence

immediately before the death of the body, or, as I might say,

previous to the new life. At the hour of physical birth, such

influences cause idiocy or such imperfection of the bodily functions

that death ensues, and the spirit returns to seek another entrance

into the world of matter. When a man dies dominated by some intense

earthly desire, his mind is barred against the higher powers and

greater possibilities of spirit; his whole nature is closed against

their reception, so that he perceives and hopes for nothing save the

continuance of that life which has so completely filled his nature.

His old environment overpowers the new by the very force of his will;

and if this continues, he becomes not only a haunting spirit, but a

materialized one, visible to certain people under certain conditions,

and compelled to live out his life amid the scenes which had so

attracted him. This, Mr. Henley, has been my case. I shall live upon

earth, and be visible to the spiritually susceptible, until the

strong impression made at the hour of death shall have worn away.”

“And the young lady, is she your daughter?” inquired Paul.

“She is my daughter,” answered the old man solemnly.

“How comes it, then, that she addresses you by so singular a name?”

“It is the one she first learned to use in infancy. As I partially

explained to you, my mother was a Hindoo, while my father was

English. The name Ah Ben belongs to the maternal side of my family.”

“Another question--more vital than any I have yet asked, because it

concerns my own well-being and happiness,” continued Paul; “how is it

possible that Dorothy can live in a place like this with a being who

is only semi-material?

“Because her nature is double, as is mine,” answered the old man.

“Dorothy, like her sisters and mother, passed out of this life more

than a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“And did the same causes operate to bring her back to earth?”

Ah Ben became more serious than ever as he answered: “You have

touched upon the sorest point of all, and one which requires further

elucidation. Sudden and unnatural death has a retarding tendency upon

the spirit's progress; but where one has caused his own destruction,

the evil resulting is incalculable. I was a suicide; and ten thousand

times over had I better have borne all the ills that earth could heap

upon me, than have stooped to such folly. For in what has it resulted?

A prolonged mental agony, such as you can never conceive; for I have

no home in heaven nor earth, but am forced to wander amid the shadows

of each world, unrecognized by those either above or below me. Here I

am shunned upon every hand, and, as you saw for yourself, I was equally

avoided in Levachan. But that is not all; in the ignorance and

selfishness of my grief, I yearned for my lost ones with a solicitude,

a consuming fierceness and power of will which insanity only can equal.

By nature I was intense; and even had I not committed the fatal act, my

vitality would have burned itself away with the awful concentration of

feeling. But it must be remembered that I was not the only sufferer from

this pitiful lack of self-control. The stronger desires and emotions of

the living influence the dead--I use the words in their common

acceptation for the sake of convenience--and here is where I caused

such incalculable injury to my own child; for Dorothy, having entered

the spirit world with inferior powers of resistance, fell under the

spell I had wrought, and joined me in the haunting of this old house.

Here, Mr. Henley, am I, a suicide, justly deserving the punishment I

receive; but there is my child, as innocent as the air of heaven,

forced to suffer with me, and it is no small part of my chastisement

to realize this fact. People fly from us as they would from pestilence,

both in this world and the other, although many of the dwellers in the

higher state, from their greater knowledge and loftier development,

simply avoid us. And we can not criticise their action in either world,

for we are not adapted to either state. We are outcasts.”

Ah Ben paused for a moment, and then became deeply impressive, as he

added:

“Mr. Henley, let the experience of one who has suffered, and who will

continue to suffer more than you can possibly understand--let his

experience, I say, warn you against the unreasonable yearning for the

return of those who have passed on to their spiritual state! Here our

eyes are blinded to the blessedness to come, and it is well it is so;

for, were it otherwise, the discipline of earth life would be lost,

as too monstrous to be endured. No man could submit to the restraints

of matter, with the power and freedom of spirit in sight. If once I

could have realized the dreadful results entailed upon what I had

lost, by my effort to recover it, I would have known that the

blackest curse would have been trifling by contrast. Let the dead

rest! and let one who knows persuade you that their entrance into

spirit life is a time rather for rejoicing than regret!”

“And is Dorothy to suffer as you have suffered, for what was no fault

of hers?” demanded Paul.

“Yes,” said Ah Ben; “the law of Karma is the law of nature and the

law of God; and while ordinarily she would have passed safely on in

the possession of her new-born powers, the pitfall which I blindly

laid beset her unwary feet, and she fell. There is but one course

open; but one way in which Dorothy can reach either heaven or earth,

by a shorter road than that which I am compelled to travel. It is

simple, and yet one which, under the circumstances, is almost

impossible to achieve; and this from the fact that it requires the

cooperation of a human being.”

“I should imagine that any one with the ordinary feelings of

humanity would gladly do what he could to assist such an unhappy

fellow-creature!” exclaimed Paul.

“But she is not a fellow-creature,” urged the old man.

“True, but I understood you to say that she might become one with the

cooperation of a human being.”

“I did,” Ah Ben replied; “but where is that to be found?”

“Not knowing the nature of the task, it would be difficult to say,”

answered Paul, “but I will adhere to my first proposition, that one

with the ordinary feelings of humanity would gladly do what he

could.”

“Mr. Henley, have you the ordinary feelings of humanity?”

“I hope so,” answered Paul.

“Would you be willing to marry a ghost, and be haunted for the rest

of your life; for the ghost would be sure to outlive you?”

Paul started.

“I have put the case too strongly,” continued Ah Ben; “Dorothy is not

a ghost in the ordinary sense. She is a materialized spirit, and

that, my dear friend, is exactly what you are, with this difference:

you have practically no control over your body; while she, having

returned from the summer land abnormally, can, like myself, become

invisible at will; but, upon the other hand, she is not always

visible, even to those whom she would like to have see her. In short,

as I have told you before, we belong to neither one world nor the

other. But through union with a human creature, Dorothy can once more

assume the functions of mortality, and after another period of earth

life, become fitted again for the land of spirits.”

“I understand you entirely,” answered Paul, “and can say, without

hesitation or reservation, that I love your daughter, and, be she

whom or what she may, will gladly marry her, if she can say as much

for me.”

“I thought I could not be mistaken in my man,” answered Ah Ben. “I

have believed in your frankness, honor, and courage from the

beginning; and although you came to this house with the intention of

deceit, I feel sure that in the more serious situations of life you

are to be relied upon. You have spoken to Dorothy, Mr. Henley, and I

am confident she shares my trust in you.”

“I hope so,” answered Paul.

“I know it,” the old man replied; “and let me tell you further that

this match is not one subservient to the ends of utility or profit;

for, were such the motive, the very end would be defeated. Dorothy

must love the man she marries, with all her heart and soul; and you

can readily understand, ostracized as we are, how difficult it has

been to find such a one. For more than a century we have sought in

vain, and I have pressed every opportunity and strained every power

to bring about such a meeting and such a result as I trust will

shortly follow; but the world has given us no chance, and those few

who have been able to see us have only fled in terror!”

“Am I at liberty, then, to prove my devotion to your daughter by

asking her to marry me?”

“You have already done so,” replied Ah Ben, “and I have already given

my consent; but I warn you, Mr. Henley, that in your intercourse with

my daughter you should remember that you are dealing with a nature

far more intense, and with far greater capacity to love, than any you

have ever known. While the most fervid desire of Dorothy's life has

doubtless been to meet some creature with whom she might affiliate, I

believe she would forego even that happiness if convinced that it

would prove disastrous to the object of her affection.”

Paul extended his hands to Ah Ben, who took them with fervor. “Dear

old man!” he said, “although I am speaking to a ghost, I am not

afraid of you; and knowing how much you have suffered, it shall be my

aim to help and comfort you; for have you not shown me how close is

the other world, and so in a measure removed the dread of death? How

truly do I feel that those who have left us may be close around us,

although we can not see them.”

And then, with a new light on all that surrounded him, Paul bade Ah

Ben good-night, and went to his room.

10

The following morning, Mr. Henley was puzzled, in thinking over the

conversation of the previous night, to remember that he had not been

alarmed at the revelations which Ah Ben had made. The things he had

seen and the words he had heard were amazing, but they had not

terrified him; and when he recalled the easy and natural manner in

which he had talked, he attributed the fact to the same mental change

whereby he had perceived the visions.

The breakfast room was deserted, neither Dorothy nor Ah Ben being

present; and so Paul partook of the meal alone, which he found

prepared as usual. He lingered over his second cup of tea in the hope

that the young lady would join him; but after loitering quite beyond

the usual hour, he sauntered out into the garden, trusting to find

her there. But Dorothy was nowhere to be seen, and Henley sank

dejectedly into the old rustic bench to await her coming.

An hour passed, but no token of a human being was in evidence; not

even the voice nor the footstep of a servant had been heard, and Paul

sat consuming cigarettes at a rate that showed clearly his

impatience. At last he returned to the house, and going to his room

took pen and paper and wrote, in a large hand:

Will Miss Guir kindly let me know at what hour I may see her?

I shall await her answer in the garden.