He paused--then on a sudden impulse came close up to his brother, and

laid a hand on his shoulder.

“And do you mean to tell me,” he asked, “that you who have studied so

much, and have mastered so much, yet receive _no_ such impressions as

those I speak of?”

A faint flush coloured El-Râmi’s olive skin.

“Certain impressions come to me at times, of course,” he answered

slowly.--“And there have been certain seasons in my life when I have

had visions of the impossible. But I have a coldly-tempered

organisation, Féraz,--I am able to reason these things away.”

“Oh, you can reason the whole world away if you choose,” said

Féraz.--“For it is nothing after all but a pinch of star-dust.”

“If you can reason a thing away it does not exist,” observed El-Râmi

drily.--“Reduce the world, as you say, to a pinch of star-dust, still

the pinch of star-dust is _there_--it Exists.”

“Some people doubt even that!” said Féraz, smiling.

“Well, everything can be over-done,” replied his brother,--“even the

process of reasoning. We can, if we choose, ‘reason’ ourselves into

madness. There is a boundary-line to every science which the human

intellect dare not overstep.”

“I wonder what and where is _your_ boundary-line?” questioned Féraz

lightly.--“Have you laid one down for yourself at all? Surely

not!--for you are too ambitious.”

El-Râmi made no answer to this observation, but betook himself to his

books and papers. Féraz meanwhile set the room in order and cleared

away the breakfast,--and, these duties done, he quietly withdrew. Left

to himself, El-Râmi took from the centre drawer of his writing-table

a medium-sized manuscript book which was locked, and which he opened

by means of a small key that was attached to his watch-chain, and

bending over the title-page he critically examined it. Its heading ran

thus--

The New Religion

_A Reasonable Theory of Worship conformable to the Eternal and

Unalterable Laws of Nature._

“The title does not cover all the ground,” he murmured as he

read.--“And yet how am I to designate it? It is a vast subject, and

presents different branches of treatment, and, after all said and

done, I may have wasted my time in planning it. Most likely I

have,--but there is no scientist living who would refuse to accept it.

The question is, shall I ever finish it?--shall I ever know positively

that there IS, without doubt, a conscious, personal Something or Some

one after death who enters at once upon another existence? My new

experiment will decide all--if I _see_ the Soul of Lilith, all

hesitation will be at an end--I shall be sure of everything which now

seems uncertain. And then the triumph!--then the victory!”

His eyes sparkled, and, dipping his pen in the ink, he prepared to

write, but ere he did so the message which the monk had left for him

to read recurred with a chill warning to his memory,--

“Beware the end! With Lilith’s love comes Lilith’s freedom.”

He considered the words for a moment apprehensively,--and then a proud

smile played round his mouth.

“For a Master who has attained to some degree of wisdom, his intuition

is strangely erroneous this time,” he muttered. “For if there be any

dream of love in Lilith, that dream, that love is mine! And being

mine, who shall dispute possession,--who shall take her from me? No

one,--not even God,--for He does not break through the laws of Nature.

And by those laws I have kept Lilith--and even so I will keep her

still.”

Satisfied with his own conclusions, he began to write, taking up the

thread of his theory of religion where he had left it on the previous

day. He had a brilliant and convincing style, and was soon deep in an

elaborate and eloquent disquisition on the superior scientific

reasoning contained in the ancient Eastern faiths, as compared with

the modern scheme of Christianity, which limits God’s power to this

world only, and takes no consideration of the fate of other visible

and far more splendid spheres.

XXIII.

The few days immediately following the visit of the mysterious monk

from Cyprus were quiet and uneventful enough. El-Râmi led the life of

a student and recluse; Féraz, too, occupied himself with books and

music, thinking much, but saying little. He had solemnly sworn never

again to make allusion to the forbidden subject of his brother’s great

experiment, and he meant to keep his vow. For, though he had in very

truth absolutely forgotten the name “Lilith,” he had not forgotten the

face of her whose beauty had surprised his senses and dazzled his

brain. She had become to him a nameless Wonder,--and from the sweet

remembrance of her loveliness he gained a certain consolation and

pleasure which he jealously and religiously kept to himself. He

thought of her as a poet may think of an ideal goddess seen in a

mystic dream,--but he never ventured to ask a question concerning her.

And even if he had wished to do so,--even if he had indulged the idea

of encouraging Zaroba to follow up the work she had begun by telling

him all she could concerning the beautiful tranced girl, that course

was now impossible. For Zaroba seemed stricken dumb as well as

deaf,--what had chanced to her he could not tell,--but a mysterious

silence possessed her; and, though her large black eyes were

sorrowfully eloquent, she never uttered a word. She came and went on

various household errands, always silently and with bent head,--she

looked older, feebler, wearier and sadder, but not so much as a

gesture escaped her that could be construed into a complaint. Once

Féraz made signs to her of inquiry after her health and

well-being--she smiled mournfully, but gave no other response, and,

turning away, left him hurriedly. He mused long and deeply upon all

this,--and, though he felt sure that Zaroba’s strange but resolute

speechlessness was his brother’s work, he dared not speculate too far

or inquire too deeply. For he fully recognised El-Râmi’s power,--a

power so scientifically balanced, and used with such terrible and

unerring precision, that there could be no opposition possible unless

one were of equal strength and knowledge. Féraz knew he could no more

compete with such a force than a mouse can wield a thunderbolt,--he

therefore deemed it best to resign himself to his destiny and wait the

course of events.

“For,” he said within himself, “it is not likely one man should be

permitted to use such strange authority over natural forces long,--it

may be that God is trying him,--putting him to the proof, as it were,

to find out how far he will dare to go,--and then--ah then!--_what_

then? If his heart were dedicated to the service of God I should not

fear,--but--as it is, I dread the end!”

His instinct was correct in this,--for in spite of his poetic and

fanciful temperament he had plenty of quick perception and he saw

plainly what El-Râmi himself was not very willing to

recognise,--namely, that in all the labour of his life, so far as it

had gone, he, El-Râmi, had rather opposed himself to the unseen

divine, than striven to incorporate himself with it. He preferred to

believe in natural Force only; his inclination was to deny the

possibility of anything behind that. He accepted the idea of

Immortality to a certain extent, because natural Force was for ever

giving him proofs of the perpetual regeneration of life--but that

there was a primal source of this generating influence,--One, great

and eternal, who would demand an account of all lives, and an accurate

summing-up of all words and actions,--in this, though he might assume

the virtue of faith, Féraz very well knew he had it not. Like the

greater majority of scientists and natural philosophers generally,

what Self could comprehend, he accepted,--but all that extended beyond

Self,--all that made of Self but a grain of dust in a vast

infinitude,--all that forced the creature to prostrate himself humbly

before the Creator and cry out “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!”

this he tacitly and proudly rejected. For which reasons the gentle,

dreamy Féraz had good cause to fear,--and a foreboding voice for ever

whispered in his mind that man without God was as a world without

light,--a black chaos of blank unfruitfulness.

With the ensuing week the grand “reception” to which El-Râmi and his

brother had been invited by Lord Melthorpe came off with great

_éclat_. Lady Melthorpe’s “crushes” were among the most brilliant of

the season, and this one was particularly so, as it was a special

function held for the entertainment of the distinguished Crown Prince

of a great nation. True, the distinguished Crown Prince was only

“timed” to look in a little after midnight for about ten minutes, but

the exceeding brevity of his stay was immaterial to the fashionable

throng. All that was needed was just the piquant flavour,--the

“passing” of a Royal Presence,--to make the gathering socially

complete. The rooms were crowded--so much so indeed that it was

difficult to take note of any one person in particular, yet, in spite

of this fact, there was a very general movement of interest and

admiration when El-Râmi entered with his young and handsome brother

beside him. Both had a look and manner too distinctly striking to

escape observation:--their olive complexions, black melancholy eyes,

and slim yet stately figures, were set off to perfection by the

richness of the Oriental dresses they wore; and the grave composure

and perfect dignity of their bearing offered a pleasing contrast to

the excited pushing, waddling, and scrambling indulged in by the

greater part of the aristocratic assemblage. Lady Melthorpe herself, a

rather pretty woman attired in a very æsthetic gown, and wearing her

brown hair all towzled and arranged _à la Grecque_, in diamond

bandeaux, caught sight of them at once, and was delighted. Such

picturesque-looking creatures were really ornaments to a room, she

thought with much interior satisfaction; and, wreathing her face with

smiles, she glided up to them.

“I am so charmed, my dear El-Râmi!” she said, holding out her

jewelled hand.--“So charmed to see _you_--you so very seldom will come

to me! _And_ your brother! So glad! Why did you never tell me you had

a brother? Naughty man! What is your brother’s name? Féraz?

Delightful!--it makes one think of Hafiz and Sadi and all those very

charming Eastern people. I must find some one interesting to introduce

to you. Will you wait here a minute--the crowd is so thick in the

centre of the room that really I’m afraid you will not be able to get

through it--_do_ wait here, and I’ll bring the Baroness to you--don’t

you know the Baroness? Oh, she’s such a delightful creature--so clever

at palmistry! Yes--just stay where you are,--I’ll come back directly!”

And with sundry good-humoured nods her ladyship swept away, while

Féraz glanced at his brother with an expression of amused inquiry.

“That is Lady Melthorpe?” he asked.

“That is Lady Melthorpe,” returned El-Râmi--“our hostess, and Lord

Melthorpe’s wife; his, ‘to have and to hold, for better for worse, for

richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, honour, and

cherish till death do them part,’” and he smiled somewhat

satirically.--“It seems odd, doesn’t it?--I mean, such solemn words

sound out of place sometimes. Do you like her?”

Féraz made a slight sign in the negative.

“She does not speak sincerely,” he said in a low tone.

El-Râmi laughed.

“My dear boy, you mustn’t expect any one to be ‘sincere’ in society.

You said you wanted to ‘see life’--very well, but it will never do to

begin by viewing it in that way. An outburst of actual sincerity in

this human _mêlée_”--and he glanced comprehensively over the

brilliant throng--“would be like a match to a gunpowder magazine--the

whole thing would blow up into fragments and be dispersed to the four

winds of heaven, leaving nothing behind but an evil odour.”

“Better so,” said Féraz dreamily, “than that false hearts should be

mistaken for true.”

El-Râmi looked at him wistfully;--what a beautiful youth he really

was, with all that glow of thought and feeling in his dark eyes! How

different was his aspect from that of the jaded, cynical, vice-worn

young men of fashion, some of whom were pushing their way past at that

moment,--men in the twenties who had the air of being well on in the

forties, and badly preserved at that--wretched, pallid, languid,

exhausted creatures who had thrown away the splendid jewel of their

youth in a couple of years’ stupid dissipation and folly. At that

moment Lord Melthorpe, smiling and cordial, came up to them and shook

hands warmly, and then introduced with a few pleasant words a

gentleman who had accompanied him as,--“Roy Ainsworth, the famous

artist, you know!”

“Oh, not at all!” drawled the individual thus described, with a

searching glance at the two brothers from under his drowsy

eyelids.--“Not famous by any means--not yet. Only trying to be. You’ve

got to paint something startling and shocking nowadays before you are

considered ‘famous’;--and even then, when you’ve outraged all the

proprieties, you must give a banquet, or take a big house and hold

receptions, or have an electrically-lit-up skeleton in your studio, or

something of that sort, to keep the public attention fixed upon you.

It’s such a restless age.”

El-Râmi smiled gravely.

“The feverish outburst of an unnatural vitality immediately preceding

dissolution,” he observed.

“Ah!--you think that? Well--it may be,--I’m sure I hope it is. I,

personally, should be charmed to believe in the rapidly-approaching

end of the world. We really need a change of planet as much as certain

invalids require a change of air. Your brother, however”--and here he

flashed a keen glance at Féraz--“seems already to belong to quite a

different sphere.”

Féraz looked up with a pleased yet startled expression.

“Yes,--but how did you know it?” he asked.

It was now the artist’s turn to be embarrassed. He had used the words

“different sphere” merely as a figure of speech, whereas this

intelligent-looking young fellow evidently took the phrase in a

literal sense. It was very odd!--and he hesitated what to answer, so

El-Râmi came to the rescue.

“Mr. Ainsworth only means that you do not look quite like other

people, Féraz, that’s all. Poets and musicians often carry their own

distinctive mark.”

“Is he a poet?” inquired Lord Melthorpe with interest.--“And has he

published anything?”

El-Râmi laughed good-humouredly.

“Not he! My dear Lord Melthorpe, we are not all called upon to give

the world our blood and brain and nerve and spirit. Some few reserve

their strength for higher latitudes. To give greedy humanity

everything of one’s self is rather too prodigal an expenditure.”

“I agree with you,” said a chill yet sweet voice close to them.--“It

was Christ’s way of work,--and quite too unwise an example for any of

us to follow.”

Lord Melthorpe and Mr. Ainsworth turned quickly to make way for the

speaker,--a slight fair woman, with a delicate thoughtful face full of

light, languor, and scorn, who, clad in snowy draperies adorned here

and there with the cold sparkle of diamonds, drew near them at the

moment. El-Râmi and his brother both noted her with interest,--she

was so different from the other women present.

“I am delighted to see you!” said Lord Melthorpe as he held out his

hand in greeting.--“It is so seldom we have the honour! Mr. Ainsworth

you already know,--let me introduce my Oriental friends

here,--El-Râmi Zarânos and his brother Féraz Zarânos,--Madame

Irene Vassilius--you must have heard of her very often.”

El-Râmi had indeed heard of her,--she was an authoress of high

repute, noted for her brilliant satirical pen, her contempt of press

criticism, and her influence over, and utter indifference to, all men.

Therefore he regarded her now with a certain pardonable curiosity as

he made her his profoundest salutation, while she returned his look

with equal interest.

“It is you who said that we must not give ourselves wholly away to the

needs of humanity, is it not?” she said, letting her calm eyes dwell

upon him with a dreamy yet searching scrutiny.

“I certainly did say so, Madame,” replied El-Râmi.--“It is a waste of

life,--and humanity is always ungrateful.”

“You have proved it? But perhaps you have not tried to deserve its

gratitude.”

This was rather a home-thrust, and El-Râmi was surprised and vaguely

annoyed at its truth. Irene Vassilius still stood quietly observing

him,--then she turned to Roy Ainsworth.

“There is the type you want for your picture,” she said, indicating

Féraz by a slight gesture.--“That boy, depicted in the clutches of

your Phryne, would make angels weep.”

“If I could make _you_ weep I should have achieved something like

success,” replied the painter, his sleepy eyes dilating with a passion

he could not wholly conceal.--“But icebergs neither smile nor shed

tears,--and intellectual women are impervious to emotion.”

“That is a mistaken idea,--one of the narrow notions common to men,”

she answered, waving her fan idly to and fro.--“You remind me of the

querulous Edward Fitzgerald, who wrote that he was glad Mrs. Barrett

Browning was dead, because there would be no more _Aurora Leighs_. He

condescended to say she was a ‘woman of Genius,’ but what was the use

of it? ‘She and her Sex,’ he said, ‘would be better minding the

Kitchen and their Children.’ He and _his_ Sex always consider the

terrible possibilities to themselves of a badly-cooked dinner and a

baby’s screams. His notion about the limitation of woman’s sphere is

man’s notion generally.”

“It is not mine,” said Lord Melthorpe.--“I think women are cleverer

than men.”

“Ah, you are not a reviewer!” laughed Madame Vassilius--“so you can

afford to be generous. But as a rule men detest clever women, simply

because they are jealous of them.”

“They have cause to be jealous of _you_,” said Roy Ainsworth.--“You

succeed in everything you touch.”

“Success is easy,” she replied indifferently,--“Resolve upon it, and

carry out that resolve--and the thing is done.”

El-Râmi looked at her with new interest.

“Madame, you have a strong will!” he observed.--“But permit me to say

that all your sex are not like yourself, beautiful, gifted, and

resolute at one and the same time. The majority of women are

deplorably unintelligent and uninteresting.”

“That is precisely how I find the majority of men!” declared Irene

Vassilius, with that little soft laugh of hers which was so sweet, yet

so full of irony.--“You see, we view things from different

standpoints. Moreover, the deplorably unintelligent and uninteresting

women are the very ones you men elect to marry, and make the mothers

of the nation. It is the way of masculine wisdom,--so full of careful

forethought and admirable calculation!” She laughed again, and

continued--“Lord Melthorpe tells me you are a seer,--an Eastern

prophet arisen in these dull modern days--now will you solve me a

riddle that I am unable to guess,--myself?--and tell me if you can,

who am I and what am I?”

“Madame,” replied El-Râmi bowing profoundly, “I cannot in one moment

unravel so complex an enigma.”

She smiled, not ill pleased, and met his dark, fiery, penetrating

glance unreservedly,--then, drawing off her long loose glove, she held

out her small beautifully-shaped white hand.

“Try me,” she said lightly, “for if there is any truth in

‘brain-waves’ or reflexes of the mind the touch of my fingers ought to

send electric meanings through you. I am generally judged as of a

frivolous disposition because I am small in stature, slight in build,

and have curly hair--all proofs positive, according to the majority,

of latent foolishness. Colossal women, however, are always

astonishingly stupid, and fat women lethargic--but a mountain of good

flesh is always more attractive to man than any amount of intellectual

perception. Oh, I am not posing as one of the ‘misunderstood’; not at

all--I simply wish you to look well at me first and take in my

‘frivolous’ appearance thoroughly, before being misled by the messages

of my hand.”

El-Râmi obeyed her in so far that he fixed his eyes upon her more

searchingly than before,--a little knot of fashionable loungers had

stopped to listen, and now watched her face with equal curiosity. No

rush of embarrassed colour tinged the cool fairness of her cheeks--her

expression was one of quiet, half-smiling indifference--her attitude

full of perfect self-possession.

“No one who looks at your eyes can call you frivolous Madame,” said

El-Râmi at last.--“And no one who observes the lines of your mouth

and chin could suspect you of latent foolishness. Your physiognomy

must have been judged by the merest surface-observers. As for stature,

we are aware that goes for naught,--most of the heroes and heroines of

history have been small and slight in build. I will now, if you permit

me, take your hand.”

She laid it at once in his extended palm,--and he slowly closed his

own fingers tightly over it. In a couple of minutes, his face

expressed nothing but astonishment.

“Is it possible?” he muttered--“can I believe----” he broke off

hurriedly, interrupted by a chorus of voices exclaiming--“Oh, what is

it?--_do_ tell us!” and so forth.

“May I speak, Madame?” he inquired, bending towards Irene, with

something of reverence.

She smiled assent.

“If I am surprised,” he then said slowly, “it is scarcely to be

wondered at, for it is the first time I have ever chanced across the

path of a woman whose life was so perfectly ideal. Madame, to you I

must address the words of Hamlet--‘pure as ice, chaste as snow, thou

shalt not escape calumny.’ Such an existence as yours, stainless,

lofty, active, hopeful, patient, and independent, is a reproach to

men, and few will love you for being so superior. Those who do love

you, will probably love in vain,--for the completion of your existence

is not here--but elsewhere.”

Her soft eyes dilated wonderingly,--the people immediately around her

stared vaguely at El-Râmi’s dark impenetrable face.

“Then shall I be alone all my life as I am now?” she asked, as he

released her hand.

“Are you sure you are alone?” he said with a grave smile.--“Are there

not more companions in the poet’s so-called solitude than in the

crowded haunts of men?”

She met his earnest glance, and her own face grew radiant with a

certain sweet animation that made it very lovely.

“You are right,” she replied simply--“I see you understand.”

Then, with a graceful salutation, she prepared to move away--Roy

Ainsworth pressed up close to her.

“Are you satisfied with your fortune, Madame Vassilius?” he asked

rather querulously.

“Indeed I am,” she answered. “Why should I not be?”

“If loneliness is a part of it,” he said audaciously, “I suppose you

will never marry?”

“I suppose not,” she said with a ripple of laughter in her voice.--“I

fear I should never be able to acknowledge a man my superior!”

She left him then, and he stood for a moment looking after her with a

vexed air,--then he turned anew towards El-Râmi, who was just

exchanging greetings with Sir Frederick Vaughan. This latter young man

appeared highly embarrassed and nervous, and seemed anxious to

unburden himself of something which apparently was difficult to utter.

He stared at Féraz, pulled the ends of his long moustache, and made

scrappy remarks on nothing in particular, while El-Râmi observed him

with amused intentness.

“I say, do you remember the night we saw the new Hamlet?” he blurted

out at last.--“You know--I haven’t seen you since----”

“I remember most perfectly,” said El-Râmi composedly--“‘To be or not

to be’ was the question then with you, as well as with Hamlet--but I

suppose it is all happily decided now as ‘to be.’”

“What is decided?” stammered Sir Frederick--“I mean, how do you know

everything is decided, eh?”

“When is your marriage to take place?” asked El-Râmi.

Vaughan almost jumped.

“By Jove!--you are an uncanny fellow!” he exclaimed.--“However, as it

happens, you are right. I’m engaged to Miss Chester.”

“It is no surprise to me, but pray allow me to congratulate you!” and

El-Râmi smiled.--“You have lost no time about it, I must say! It is

only a fortnight since you first saw the lady at the theatre.

Well!--confess me a true prophet!”

Sir Frederick looked uncomfortable, and was about to enter into an

argument concerning the _pros_ and _cons_ of prophetic insight, when

Lady Melthorpe suddenly emerged from the circling whirlpool of her

fashionable guests and sailed towards them with a swan-like grace and

languor.

“I cannot find the dear Baroness,” she said plaintively. “She is so

much in demand! Do you know, my dear El-Râmi, she is really almost as

wonderful as you are! Not quite--oh, not quite, but nearly! She can

tell you all your past and future by the lines of your hand, in the

most astonishing manner! Can you do that also?”

El-Râmi laughed.

“It is a gipsy’s trick,” he said,--“and the _bonâ-fide_ gipsies who

practise it in country lanes for the satisfaction of servant girls get

arrested by the police for ‘fortune-telling.’ The gipsies of the

London drawing-rooms escape scot-free.”

“Oh, you are severe!” said Lady Melthorpe, shaking her finger at him

with an attempt at archness--“You are really very severe! You must not

be hard on our little amusements,--you know, in this age, we are all

so very much interested in the supernatural!”

El-Râmi grew paler, and a slight shudder shook his frame. The

supernatural! How lightly people talked of that awful Something, that

like a formless Shadow waits behind the portals of the grave!--that

Something that evinced itself, suggested itself, nay, almost declared

itself, in spite of his own doubts, in the momentary contact of a hand

with his own, as in the case of Irene Vassilius. For in that contact

he had received a faint, yet decided thrill through his nerves--a

peculiar sensation which he recognised as a warning of something

spiritually above himself,--and this had compelled him to speak of an

“elsewhere” for her, though for himself he persisted in nourishing the

doubt that an “elsewhere” existed. Roy Ainsworth, the artist,

observing him closely, noted how stern and almost melancholy was the

expression of his handsome dark face,--then glancing from him to his

brother, was surprised at the marked difference between the two. The

frank, open, beautiful features of Féraz seemed to invite confidence,

and, acting on the suggestion made to him by Madame Vassilius, he

spoke abruptly.

“I wish you would sit to me,” he said.

“Sit to you? For a picture, do you mean?” and Féraz looked delighted

yet amazed.

“Yes. You have just the face I want. Are you in town?--can you spare

the time?”

“I am always with my brother”--began Féraz hesitatingly.

El-Râmi heard him, and smiled rather sadly.

“Féraz is his own master,” he said gently, “and his time is quite at

his own disposal.”

“Then come and let us talk it over,” said Ainsworth, taking Féraz by

the arm. “I’ll pilot you through this crowd, and we’ll make for some

quiet corner where we can sit down. Come along!”

Out of old habit Féraz glanced at his brother for permission, but

El-Râmi’s head was turned away; he was talking to Lord Melthorpe. So

through the brilliant throng of fashionable men and women, many of

whom turned to stare at him as he passed, Féraz went, half eager,

half reluctant, his large fawn-like eyes flashing an innocent

wonderment on the scene around him,--a scene different from everything

to which he had been accustomed. He was uncomfortably conscious that

there was something false and even deadly beneath all this glitter and

show,--but his senses were dazzled for the moment, though the

poet-soul of him instinctively recoiled from the noise and glare and

restless movement of the crowd. It was his first entry into so-called

“society”;--and, though attracted and interested, he was also somewhat

startled and abashed--for he felt instinctively that he was thrown

upon his own resources,--that, for the present at any rate, his

brother’s will no longer influenced him, and with the sudden sense of

liberty came the sudden sense of fear.

XXIV.

Towards midnight the expected Royal Personage came and went;

fatigued but always amiable, he shed the sunshine of his stereotyped

smile on Lady Melthorpe’s “crush”--shook hands with his host and

hostess, nodded blandly to a few stray acquaintances, and went through

all the dreary duties of social boredom heroically, though he was

pining for his bed more wearily than any work-worn digger of the soil.

He made his way out more quickly than he came in, and with his

departure a great many of the more “snobbish” among the fashionable

set disappeared also, leaving the rooms freer and cooler for their

absence. People talked less loudly and assertively,--little groups

began to gather in corners and exchange friendly chit-chat,--men who

had been standing all the evening found space to sit down beside their

favoured fair ones, and indulge themselves in talking a little

pleasant nonsense,--even the hostess herself was at last permitted to

occupy an arm-chair and take a few moments’ rest. Some of the guests

had wandered into the music-saloon, a quaintly-decorated oak-panelled

apartment which opened out from the largest drawing-room. A string

band had played there till Royalty had come and gone, but now “sweet

harmony” no longer “wagged her silver tongue,” for the musicians were

at supper. The grand piano was open, and Madame Vassilius stood near

it, idly touching the ivory keys now and then with her small white,

sensitive-looking fingers. Close beside her, comfortably ensconced in

a round deep chair, sat a very stout old lady with a curiously large

hairy face and a beaming expression of eye, who appeared to have got

into her pink silk gown by some cruelly unnatural means, so tightly

was she laced, and so much did she seem in danger of bursting. She

perspired profusely and smiled perpetually, and frequently stroked the

end of her very pronounced moustache with quite a mannish air. This

was the individual for whom Lady Melthorpe had been searching,--the

Baroness von Denkwald, noted for her skill in palmistry.

“Ach! it is warm!” she said in her strong German accent, giving an

observant and approving glance at Irene’s white-draped form.--“You are

ze one womans zat is goot to look at. A peach mit ice-cream,--dot is

yourself.”

Irene smiled pensively, but made no answer.

The Baroness looked at her again, and fanned herself rapidly.

“It is sometings bad mit you?” she asked at last.--“You look

sorrowful? Zat Eastern mans--he say tings disagreeable? You should

pelieve _me_,--I have told you of your hand--ach! what a

fortune!--splendid!--fame,--money, title,--a grand marriage----”

Irene lifted her little hand from the keyboard of the piano, and

looked curiously at the lines in her pretty palm.

“Dear Baroness, there must be some mistake,” she said slowly.--“I was

a lonely child,--and some people say that as you begin, so will you

end. I shall never marry--I am a lonely woman, and it will always be

so.”

“Always, always--not at all!” and the Baroness shook her large head

obstinately. “You will marry; and Gott in Himmel save you from a

husband such as mine! He is dead--oh yes--a goot ting;--he is petter

off--and so am I. Moch petter!”

And she laughed, the rise and fall of her ample neck causing quite a

cracking sound in the silk of her bodice.

Madame Vassilius smiled again,--and then again grew serious. She was

thinking of the “elsewhere” that El-Râmi had spoken of,--she had

noticed that all he said had seemed to be uttered involuntarily,--and

that he had hesitated strangely before using the word “elsewhere.” She

longed to ask him one or two more questions,--and scarcely had the

wish formed itself in her mind, than she saw him advancing from the

drawing-room, in company with Lord Melthorpe, Sir Frederick Vaughan,

and the pretty frivolous Idina Chester, who, regardless of all that

poets write concerning the unadorned simplicity of youth, had decked

herself, American fashion, with diamonds enough for a dowager.

“It’s too lovely!” the young lady was saying as she entered.--“I

think, Mr. El-Râmi, you have made me out a most charming creature!

“Unemotional, harmless, and innocently worldly”--that was it, wasn’t

it? Well now, I think that’s splendid! I had an idea you were going to

find out something horrid about me;--I’m so glad I’m harmless! You’re

sure I’m harmless?”

“Quite sure!” said El-Râmi with a slight smile. “And there you

possess a great superiority over most women.”

And he stepped forward in obedience to Lady Melthorpe’s signal, to be

introduced to the “dear” Baroness, whose shrewd little eyes dwelt upon

him curiously.

“Do you believe in palmistry?” she asked him, after the ordinary

greetings were exchanged.

“I’m afraid not,” he answered politely--“though I am acquainted with

the rules of the art as practised in the East, and I know that many

odd coincidences do occur. But,--as an example--take _my_ hand--I am

sure you can make nothing of it.”

He held out his open palm for her inspection--she bent over it, and

uttered an exclamation of surprise. There were none of the usual

innumerable little criss-cross lines upon it--nothing, in fact, but

two deep dents from left to right, and one well-marked line running

from the wrist to the centre.

“It is unnatural!” cried the Baroness in amazement.--“It is a

malformation! There is no hand like it!”

“I believe not,” answered El-Râmi composedly.--“As I told you, you

can learn nothing from it--and yet my life has not been without its

adventures. This hand of mine is my excuse for not accepting palmistry

as an absolutely proved science.”

“Must everything be ‘proved’ for you?” asked Irene Vassilius suddenly.

“Assuredly, Madame!”

“Then have you ‘proved’ the elsewhere of which you spoke to me?”

El-Râmi flushed a little,--then paled again.

“Madame, the message of your inner spirit, as conveyed first through

the electric medium of your brain, and then through the magnetism of

your touch, told me of an ‘elsewhere.’ I may not personally or

positively know of any ‘elsewhere,’ than this present state of

being,--but your interior Self expects an ‘elsewhere,’--apparently

knows of it better than I do, and conveys that impression and

knowledge to me, apart from any consideration as to whether I may be

fitted to understand or receive it.”

These words were heard with evident astonishment by the little group

of people who stood by, listening.

“Dear me! How _ve--ry_ curious!” murmured Lady Melthorpe.--“And we

have always looked upon dear Madame Vassilius as quite a

free-thinker,”--here she smiled apologetically, as Irene lifted her

serious eyes and looked at her steadily--“I mean, as regards the next

world and all those interesting subjects. In some of her books, for

instance, she is terribly severe on the clergy.”

“Not more so than many of them deserve, I am sure,” said El-Râmi with

sudden heat and asperity.--“It was not Christ’s intention, I believe,

that the preachers of His Gospel should drink and hunt, and make love

to their neighbours’ wives _ad libitum_, which is what a great many of

them do. The lives of the clergy nowadays offer very few worthy

examples to the laity.”

Lady Melthorpe coughed delicately and warningly. She did not like

plain speaking,--she had a “pet clergyman” of her own,--moreover, she

had been bred up in the provinces among “county” folk, some of whom

still believe that at one period of the world’s history “God” was

always wanting the blood of bulls and goats to smell “as a sweet

savour in His nostrils.” She herself preferred to believe in the

possibility of the Deity’s having “nostrils,” rather than take the

trouble to consider the effect of His majestic Thought as evinced in

the supremely perfect order of the planets and solar systems.

El-Râmi, however, went on regardlessly.

“Free-thinkers,” he said, “are for the most part truth-seekers. If

everybody gave way to the foolish credulity attained to by the

believers in the ‘Mahatmas’ for instance, what an idiotic condition

the world would be in! We want free-thinkers,--as many as we can

get,--to help us to distinguish between the false and the true. We

want to separate the Actual from the Seeming in our lives,--and there

is so much Seeming and so little Actual that the process is

difficult.”

“Why, dat is nonsense!” said the Baroness von Denkwald. “Mit a Fact,

zere is no mistake--you prove him. See!” and she took up a silver

penholder from the table near her.--“Here is a pen,--mit ink it is

used to write--zere is what you call ze Actual.”

El-Râmi smiled.

“Believe me, my dear Madame, it is only a pen so long as you elect to

view it in that light. Allow me!”--and he took it from her hand,

fixing his eyes upon her the while. “Will you place the tips of your

fingers--the fingers of the left hand--yes--so! on my wrist? Thank

you!”--this, as she obeyed with a rather vague smile on her big fat

face.--“Now you will let me have the satisfaction of offering you this

spray of lilies--the first of the season,” and he gravely extended the

silver penholder.--“Is not the odour delicious?”

“Ach! it is heavenly!” and the Baroness smelt at the penholder with an

inimitable expression of delight. Everybody began to laugh--El-Râmi

silenced them by a look.

“Madame you are under some delusion,” he said quietly.--“You have no

lilies in your hand, only a penholder.”

She laughed.

“You are very funny!” she said--“but I shall not be deceived. I shall

wear my lilies.”

And she endeavoured to fasten the penholder in the front of her

bodice,--when suddenly El-Râmi drew his hand away from hers. A

startled expression passed over her face, but in a minute or two she

recovered her equanimity and twirled the penholder placidly between

her fingers.

“Zere is what you call ze Actual,” she said, taking up the

conversation where it had previously been interrupted.--“A penholder

is always a penholder--you can make nothing more of it.”

But here she was surrounded by the excited onlookers--a flood of

explanations poured upon her, as to how she had taken that same

penholder for a spray of lilies, and so forth, till the old lady grew

quite hot and angry.

“I shall not pelieve you!” she said indignantly.--“It is impossible.

You haf a joke--but I do not see it. Irene”--and she looked

appealingly to Madame Vassilius, who had witnessed the whole

scene--“it is not true, is it?”

“Yes, dear Baroness, it is true,” said Irene soothingly.--“But it is a

nothing after all. Your eyes were deceived for the moment--and Mr.

El-Râmi has shown us very cleverly, by scientific exposition, how the

human sight can be deluded--he conveyed an impression of lilies to

your brain, and you saw lilies accordingly. I quite understand,--it is

only through the brain that we receive any sense of sight. The thing

is easy of comprehension, though it seems wonderful.”

“It is devilry!” said the Baroness solemnly, getting up and shaking

out her voluminous pink train with a wrathful gesture.

“No, Madame,” said El-Râmi earnestly, with a glance at her which

somehow had the effect of quieting her ruffled feelings. “It is merely

science. Science was looked upon as ‘devilry’ in ancient times,--but

we in our generation are more liberal-minded.”

“But what shall it lead to, all zis science?” demanded the Baroness,

still with some irritation.--“I see not any use in it. If one deceive

ze eye so quickly, it is only to make peoples angry to find demselves

such fools!”

“Ah, my dear lady, if we could all know to what extent exactly we

could be fooled,--not only as regards our sight, but our other senses

and passions, we should be wiser and more capable of self-government

than we are. Every step that helps us to the attainment of such

knowledge is worth the taking.”

“And you have taken so many of those steps,” said Irene Vassilius,

“that I suppose it would be difficult to deceive _you_?”

“I am only human, Madame,” returned El-Râmi, with a faint touch of

bitterness in his tone, “and therefore I am capable of being led

astray by my own emotions as others are.”

“Are we not getting too analytical?” asked Lord Melthorpe cheerily.

“Here is Miss Chester wanting to know where your brother Féraz is.

She only caught a glimpse of him in the distance,--and she would like

to make his closer acquaintance.”

“He went with Mr. Ainsworth,” began El-Râmi.

“Yes--I saw them together in the conservatory,” said Lady Melthorpe.

“They were deep in conversation--but it is time they gave us a little

of their company--I’ll go and fetch them here.”

She went, but almost immediately returned, followed by the two

individuals in question. Féraz looked a little flushed and

excited,--Roy Ainsworth calm and nonchalant as usual.

“I’ve asked your brother to come and sit to me to-morrow,” the latter

said, addressing himself at once to El-Râmi. “He is quite willing to

oblige me,--and I presume you have no objection?”

“Not the least in the world!” responded El-Râmi with apparent

readiness, though the keen observer might have detected a slight ring

of satirical coldness in his tone.

“He is a curious fellow,” continued Roy, looking at Féraz where he

stood, going through the formality of an introduction to Miss Chester,

whose bold bright eyes rested upon him in frank and undisguised

admiration. “He seems to know nothing of life.”

“What do you call ‘life’?” demanded El-Râmi, with harsh abruptness.

“Why, life as we men live it, of course,” answered Roy, complacently.

“‘Life, as we men live it!’” echoed El-Râmi. “By Heaven, there is

nothing viler under the sun than life lived so! The very beasts have a

more decent and self-respecting mode of behaviour,--and the everyday

existence of an ordinary ‘man about town’ is low and contemptible as

compared with that of an honest-hearted dog!”

Ainsworth lifted his languid eyes with a stare of amazement;--Irene

Vassilius smiled.

“I agree with you!” she said softly.

“Oh, of course!” murmured Roy sarcastically--“Madame Vassilius agrees

with everything that points to, or suggests, the utter worthlessness

of Man!”

Her eyes flashed.

“Believe me,” she said, with some passion, “I would give worlds to be

able to honour and revere men,--and there are some whom I sincerely

respect and admire,--but I frankly admit that the majority of them

awaken nothing in me but the sentiment of contempt. I regret it, but I

cannot help it.”

“You want men to be gods,” said Ainsworth, regarding her with an

indulgent smile; “and when they can’t succeed, poor wretches, you are

hard on them. You are a born goddess, and to you it comes quite

naturally to occupy a throne on Mount Olympus, and gaze with placid

indifference on all below,--but to others the process is difficult.

For example, I am a groveller. I grovel round the base of the mountain

and rather like it. A valley is warmer than a summit, always.”

A faint sea-shell pink flush crept over Irene’s cheeks, but she made

no reply. She was watching Féraz, round whom a bevy of pretty women

were congregated, like nineteenth-century nymphs round a new Eastern

Apollo. He looked a little embarrassed, yet his very diffidence had an

indefinable grace and attraction about it which was quite novel and

charming to the jaded fashionable fair ones who for the moment made

him their chief object of attention. They were pressing him to give

them some music, and he hesitated, not out of any shyness to perform,

but simply from a sense of wonder as to how such a spiritual,

impersonal, and divine thing as Music could be made to assert itself

in the midst of so much evident frivolity. He looked appealingly at

his brother,--but El-Râmi regarded him not. He understood this mute

avoidance of his eyes,--he was thrown upon himself to do exactly as he

chose,--and his sense of pride stimulated him to action. Breaking from

the ring of his fair admirers, he advanced towards the piano.

“I will play a simple prelude,” he said, “and, if you like it, you

shall hear more.”

There was an immediate silence. Irene Vassilius moved a little apart

and sat on a low divan, her hands clasped idly in her lap;--near her

stood Lord Melthorpe, Roy Ainsworth, and El-Râmi;--Sir Frederick

Vaughan and his _fiancée_, Idina Chester, occupied what is known as a

“flirtation chair” together; several guests flocked in from the

drawing-rooms, so that the _salon_ was comparatively well filled.

Féraz poised his delicate and supple hands on the keyboard,--and

then--why, what then? Nothing!--only music!--music divinely pure and

sweet as a lark’s song,--music that spoke of things as yet undeclared

in mortal language,--of the mystery of an angel’s tears--of the joy of

a rose in bloom,--of the midsummer dreams of a lily enfolded within

its green leaf-pavilion,--of the love-messages carried by silver beams

from bridegroom-stars to bride-satellites,--of a hundred delicate and

wordless marvels the music talked eloquently in rounded and mystic

tone. And gradually, but invincibly, upon all those who listened,

there fell the dreamy nameless spell of perfect harmony,--they did not

understand, they could not grasp the far-off heavenly meanings which

the sounds conveyed, but they knew and felt such music was not

earthly. The quest of gold, or thirst of fame, had nothing to do with

such composition--it was above and beyond all that. When the delicious

melody ceased, it seemed to leave an emptiness in the air,--an aching

regret in the minds of the audience; it had fallen like dew on arid

soil, and there were tears in many eyes, and passionate emotions

stirring many hearts, as Féraz pressed his finger-tips with a

velvet-like softness on the closing chord. Then came a burst of

excited applause which rather startled him from his dreams. He looked

round with a faint smile of wonderment, and this time chanced to meet

his brother’s gaze earnestly fixed upon him. Then an idea seemed to

occur to him, and, playing a few soft notes by way of introduction, he

said aloud, almost as though he were talking to himself--

“There are in the world’s history a few old legends and stories,

which, whether they are related in prose or rhyme, seem to set

themselves involuntarily to music. I will tell you one now, if you

care to hear it,--the Story of the Priest Philemon.”

There was a murmur of delight and expectation, followed by profound

silence as before.

Féraz lifted his eyes,--bright stag-like eyes, now flashing with

warmth and inspiration,--and, pressing the piano pedals, he played a

few slow solemn chords like the opening bars of a church chant; then,

in a soft, rich, perfectly modulated voice, he began.

XXV.

“Long, long ago, in a far-away province of the Eastern world, there

was once a priest named Philemon. Early and late he toiled to acquire

wisdom--early and late he prayed and meditated on things divine and

unattainable. To the Great Unknown his aspirations turned; with all

the ardour of his soul he sought to penetrate behind the mystic veil

of the supreme centre of creation; and the joys and sorrows, hopes and

labours of mortal existence seemed to him but worthless and

contemptible trifles when compared with the eternal marvels of the

incomprehensible Hereafter, on which, in solitude, he loved to dream

and ponder.”

Here Féraz paused,--and, touching the keys of the piano with a

caressing lightness, played a soft minor melody, which, like a silver

thread of sound, accompanied his next words.

“And so, by gradual and almost imperceptible degrees, the wise priest

Philemon forgot the world;--forgot men, and women, and little

children,--forgot the blueness of the skies, the verdure of the

fields,--forgot the grace of daisies growing in the grass,--forgot the

music of sweet birds singing in the boughs,--forgot indeed everything,

except--himself!--and his prayers, and his wisdom, and his burning

desire to approach more closely every hour to that wondrous goal of

the Divine from whence all life doth come, and to which all life must,

in due time, return.”

Here the musical accompaniment changed to a plaintive tenderness.

“But, by and by, news of the wise priest Philemon began to spread in

the town near where he had his habitation,--and people spoke of his

fastings and his watchings with awe and wonder, with hope and

fear,--until at last there came a day when a great crowd of the sick

and sorrowful and oppressed surrounded his abode, and called upon him

to pray for them, and give them comfort.

“‘Bestow upon _us_ some of the Divine consolation!’ they cried,

kneeling in the dust and weeping as they spoke--‘for we are weary and

worn with labour,--we suffer with harsh wounds of the heart and

spirit,--many of us have lost all that makes life dear. Pity us, O

thou wise servant of the Supreme--and tell us out of thy stores of

heavenly wisdom whether we shall ever regain the loves that we have

lost!’

“Then the priest Philemon rose up in haste and wrath, and going out

before them said--

“‘Depart from me, ye accursed crew of wicked worldlings! Why have ye

sought me out, and what have I to do with your petty miseries? Lo, ye

have brought the evils of which ye complain upon yourselves, and

justice demands that ye should suffer. Ask not from me one word of

pity--seek not from me any sympathy for sin. I have severed myself

from ye all, to escape pollution,--my life belongs to God, not to

Humanity!’

“And the people hearing him were wroth, and went their way homewards,

sore at heart, and all uncomforted. And Philemon the priest, fearing

lest they might seek him out again, departed from that place for ever,

and made for himself a hut in the deep thickness of the forest where

never a human foot was found to wander save his own. Here in the

silence and deep solitude he resolved to work and pray, keeping his

heart and spirit sanctified from every soiling touch of nature that

could separate his thoughts from the Divine.”

Again the music changed, this time to a dulcet rippling passage of

notes like the flowing of a mountain stream,--and Féraz continued,--

“One morning, as, lost in a rapture of holy meditation, he prayed his

daily prayer, a small bird perched upon his window-sill, and began to

sing. Not a loud song, but a sweet song--full of the utmost tenderness

and playful warbling,--a song born out of the leaves and grasses and

gentle winds of heaven,--as delicate a tune as ever small bird sang.

The priest Philemon listened, and his mind wandered. The bird’s

singing was sweet; oh, so sweet, that it recalled to him many things

he had imagined long ago forgotten,--almost he heard his mother’s

voice again,--and the blithe and gracious days of his early youth

suggested themselves to his memory like the lovely fragments of a poem

once familiar, but now scarce remembered. Presently the bird flew

away, and the priest Philemon awoke as from a dream,--his prayer had

been interrupted; his thoughts had been drawn down to earth from

heaven, all through the twittering of a foolish feathered thing not

worth a farthing! Angry with himself, he spent the day in

penitence,--and on the following morning betook himself to his

devotions with more than his usual ardour. Stretched on his prayer-mat

he lay entranced; when suddenly a low sweet trill of sound broke

gently through the silence,--the innocent twittering voice of the

little bird once more aroused him,--first to a sense of wonder, then

of wrath. Starting up impatiently he looked about him, and saw the

bird quite close, within his reach,--it had flown inside his hut, and

now hopped lightly over the floor towards him, its bright eyes full of

fearless confidence, its pretty wings still quivering with the fervour

of its song. Then the priest Philemon seized a heavy oaken staff, and

slew it where it stood with one remorseless blow, and flung the little

heap of ruffled feathers out into the woodland, saying fiercely--

“‘Thou, at least, shalt never more disturb my prayers!’

“And, even as he thus spoke, a great light shone forth suddenly, more

dazzling than the brightness of the day, and lo! an Angel stood within

the hut, just where the dead bird’s blood had stained the floor. And

the priest Philemon fell upon his face and trembled greatly, for the

Vision was more glorious than the grandest of his dreams. And a Voice

called aloud, saying--

“‘Philemon, why hast thou slain My messenger?’

“And Philemon looked up in fear and wonderment, answering--

“‘Dread Lord, what messenger? I have slain nothing but a bird.’

“And the voice spake again, saying--

“‘O thou remorseless priest!--Knowest thou not that every bird in the

forest is Mine,--every leaf on the trees is Mine,--every blade of

grass and every flower is Mine, and is a part of Me! The song of that

slain bird was sweeter than thy many prayers;--and when thou didst

listen to its voice thou wert nearer Heaven than thou hast ever been!

Thou hast rebelled against My law;--in rejecting Love, thou hast

rejected Me,--and when thou didst turn the poor and needy from thy

doors, refusing them all comfort, even so did I turn My Face from thee

and refuse thy petitions. Wherefore hear now thy punishment. For the

space of a thousand years thou shalt live within this forest;--no

human eye shall ever find thee,--no human foot shall ever track

thee--no human voice shall ever sound upon thy ears. No companions

shalt thou have but birds and beasts and flowers,--from these shalt

thou learn wisdom, and through thy love of these alone shalt thou make

thy peace with Heaven! Pray no more,--fast no more,--for such things

count but little in the eternal reckonings,--but _love_!--and learn to

make thyself beloved, even by the least and lowest, and by this shalt

thou penetrate at last the mystery of the Divine!’

“The voice ceased--the glory vanished, and when the priest Philemon

raised his eyes he was alone.”

Here, altering by a few delicate modulations the dreamy character of

the music he had been improvising, Féraz reverted again to the

quaint, simple, and solemn chords with which he had opened the

recitation.

“Humbled in spirit, stricken at heart, conscious of the justice of his

doom, yet working as one not without hope, Philemon began his

heaven-appointed task. And to this day travellers’ legends tell of a

vast impenetrable solitude, a forest of giant trees, where never a

human step has trod, but where, it is said, strange colonies of birds

and beasts do congregate,--where rare and marvellous plants and

flowers flourish in their fairest hues,--where golden bees and

dazzling butterflies gather by thousands,--where all the songsters of

the air make the woods musical,--where birds of passage, outward or

homeward bound, rest on their way, sure of a pleasant haven,--and

where all the beautiful, wild, and timid inhabitants of field, forest,

and mountain are at peace together, mutually content in an Eden of

their own. There is a guardian of the place,--so say the country

people,--a Spirit, thin and white, and silver-haired, who understands

the language of the birds, and knows the secrets of the flowers, and

in whom all the creatures of the woods confide--a mystic being whose

strange life has lasted nearly a thousand years. Generations have

passed--cities and empires have crumbled to decay,--and none remember

him who was once called Philemon,--the ‘wise’ priest, grown wise

indeed at last, with the only wisdom God ever sanctifies--the Wisdom

of Love.”

With a soft impressive chord the music ceased,--the story was

ended,--and Féraz rose from the piano to be surrounded at once by a

crowd of admirers, all vying with each other in flattering expressions

of applause and delight; but, though he received these compliments

with unaffected and courteous grace enough, his eyes perpetually

wandered to his brother’s face,--that dark, absorbed beloved

face,--yes, beloved!--for, rebel as he might against El-Râmi’s

inflexible will and despotic power, Féraz knew he could never wrench

from out his heart the deep affection and reverence for him which were

the natural result of years of tender and sympathetic intercourse. If

his brother had commanded him, he had also loved him,--there could be

no doubt of that. Was he displeased or unhappy now, that he looked so

sad and absorbed in gloomy and perplexed thought? A strange pained

emotion stirred Féraz’s sensitive soul,--some intangible vague sense

of separation seemed to have arisen between himself and El-Râmi, and

he grew impatient with this brilliant assembly of well-dressed

chattering folk, whose presence prevented him from giving vent to the

full expression of his feelings. Lady Melthorpe talked to him in

dulcet languid tones, fanning herself the while, and telling him

sweetly what a “wonderful touch” he had,--what an “exquisite speaking

voice”--and so forth, all which elegantly turned phrases he heard as

in a dream. As soon as he could escape from her and those of her

friends who were immediately round him, he made his way to El-Râmi

and touched his arm.

“Let me stay beside you!” he said in a low tone in which there was a

slight accent of entreaty.

El-Râmi turned, and looked at him kindly.

“Dear boy, you had better make new friends while you can, lest the old

be taken from you.”

“Friends!” echoed Féraz--“Friends--_here_?” He gave a gesture more

eloquent than speech, of doubt and disdain,--then continued, “Might we

not go now? Is it not time to return home and sleep?”

El-Râmi smiled.

“Nay, are we not seeing life? Here we are among pretty women,

well-bred men--the rooms are elegant,--and the conversation is as

delightfully vague and nearly as noisy as the chattering of

monkeys--yet, with all these advantages, you talk of sleep!”

Féraz laughed a little.

“Yes, I am tired,” he said. “It does not seem to me real, all

this--there is something shadowy and unsubstantial about it. I think

sleep is better.”

At that moment Irene Vassilius came up to them.

“I am just going,” she said, letting her soft serious eyes dwell on

Féraz with interest, “but I feel I must thank you for your story of

the ‘Priest Philemon.’ Is it your own idea?--or does such a legend

exist?”

“Nothing is really new,” replied Féraz--“but, such as it is, it is my

own invention.”

“Then you are a poet and musician at one and the same time,” said

Irene. “It seems a natural combination of gifts, yet the two do not

always go together. I hope”--she now addressed herself to El-Râmi--“I

hope very much you will come and see me, though I’m afraid I’m not a

very popular person. My friends are few, so I cannot promise you much

entertainment. Indeed, as a rule, people do not like me.”

“_I_ like you!” said Féraz, quickly and impulsively.

She smiled.

“Yes? That is good of you. And I believe you, for you are too

unworldly to deal in flatteries. But I assure you that, generally

speaking, literary women are never social favourites.”

“Not even when they are lovely like you?” questioned Féraz, with

simple frankness.

She coloured at the evident sincerity of his admiration and the boyish

openness with which it was thus expressed. Then she laughed a little.

“Loveliness is not acknowledged as at all existent in literary

females,” she replied lightly, yet with a touch of scorn,--“even if

they do possess any personal charm, it only serves as a peg for the

malicious to hang a slander on. And, of the two sexes, men are most

cruel to a woman who dares to think for herself.”

“Are you sure of that, Madame?” asked El-Râmi gently. “May not this

be an error of your judgment?”

“I would that it were!” she said with intense expression--“Heaven

knows how sincerely I should rejoice to be proved wrong! But I am not

wrong. Men always judge women as their inferiors, not only physically

(which they are) but mentally (which they are not), and always deny

them an independent soul and independent emotions,--the majority of

men, indeed, treat them pretty much as a sort of superior

cattle;--but, nevertheless, there is a something in what the French

call ‘L’Éternel Féminin.’ Women are distinctly the greatest

sufferers in all suffering creation,--and I have often thought that

for so much pain and so much misjudgment, endured often with such

heroic silence and uncomplaining fortitude, the compensation will be

sweeter and more glorious than we, half drowned in our own tears, can

as yet hope for, or imagine!”

She paused--her eyes were dark with thought and full of a dreamy

sorrow,--then, smiling gently, she held out her hand.

“I talk too much, you will say--women always do! Come and see me if

you feel disposed--not otherwise; I will send you my card through Lady

Melthorpe--meantime, good-night!”

El-Râmi took her hand, and, as he pressed it in his own, felt again

that curious thrill which had before communicated itself to his nerves

through the same contact.

“Surely you must be a visionary, Madame!” he said, abruptly and with a

vague sense of surprise--“and you see things not at all of this

world!”

Her faint roseate colour deepened, giving singular beauty to her face.

“What a tell-tale hand mine is!” she replied, withdrawing it slowly

from his clasp. “Yes--you are right,--if I could not see things higher

than this world, I could not endure my existence for an hour. It is

because I feel the future so close about me that I have courage for,

and indifference to, the present.”

With that, she left them, and both El-Râmi and Féraz followed her

graceful movements with interested eyes, as she glided through the

rooms in her snowy trailing robes, with the frosty flash of diamonds

in her hair, till she had altogether disappeared; then the languid

voice of Lady Melthorpe addressed them.

“Isn’t she an odd creature, that Irene Vassilius? So quaint and

peculiar in her ideas! People detest her, you know--she is so

dreadfully clever!”

“There could not be a better reason for hatred!” said El-Râmi.

“You see, she says such unpleasant things,” went on Lady Melthorpe,

complacently fanning herself,--“she has such decided opinions, and

will not accommodate herself to people’s ways. I must confess I always

find her _de trop_ myself.”

“She was your guest to-night,” said Féraz suddenly, and with such a

sternness in his accent as caused her ladyship to look at him in blank

surprise.

“Certainly! One must always ask a celebrity.”

“If one must always ask, then one is bound always to respect,” said

Féraz coldly. “In our _code d’honneur_, we never speak ill of those

who have partaken of our hospitality.”

So saying, he turned on his heel and walked away with so much

haughtiness of demeanour that Lady Melthorpe stood as though rooted to

the spot, staring speechlessly after him. Then rousing herself, she

looked at El-Râmi and shrugged her shoulders.

“Really,” she began,--“really, Mr. El-Râmi, your brother’s manner is

very strange----”

“It is,” returned El-Râmi quickly--“I admit it. His behaviour is

altogether unpolished--and he is quite unaccustomed to society. I told

Lord Melthorpe so,--and I was against his being invited here. He says

exactly what he thinks, without fear or favour, and in this regard is

really a mere barbarian. Allow me to apologise for him!”

Lady Melthorpe bowed stiffly,--she saw, or fancied she saw, a faint

ironical smile playing on El-Râmi’s lips beneath his dark moustache.

She was much annoyed,--the idea of a “boy,” like Féraz, presuming to

talk to her, a leader of London fashion, about a _code d’honneur_! The

thing was monstrous,--absurd! And as for Irene Vassilius, why should

not she be talked about?--she was a public person; a writer of books

which Mrs. Grundy in her church-going moods had voted as “dangerous.”

Truly Lady Melthorpe considered she had just cause to be ruffled, and

she began to regret having invited these “Eastern men,” as she termed

them, to her house at all. El-Râmi perceived her irritation, but he

made no further remark; and, as soon as he could conveniently do so,

he took his formal leave of her. Quickly threading his way through the

now rapidly thinning throng, he sought out Féraz, whom he found in

the hall talking to Roy Ainsworth and making final arrangements for

the sitting he was to give the artist next day.

“I should like to make a study of your head too,” said Roy, with a

keen glance at El-Râmi as he approached--“but I suppose you have no

time.”

“No time--and still less inclination!” responded El-Râmi laughingly;

“for I have sworn that no ‘counterfeit presentment’ of my bodily form

shall ever exist. It would always be a false picture--it would never

be me, because it would only represent the perishable, whilst I am the

imperishable.”

“Singular man!” said Roy Ainsworth. “What do you mean?”

“What should I mean,” replied El-Râmi quickly, “save what all your

religions and churches mean, if in truth they have any meaning. Is

there not something else besides this fleshly covering? If you can

paint the imagined Soul of a man looking out of his eyes, you are a

great artist,--but if you could paint the Soul itself, stripped of its

mortal disguise, radiant, ethereal, brilliant as lightning, beautiful

as dawn, you would be greater still. And the soul is the Me,--these

features of mine, this Appearance, is mere covering,--we want a

Portrait, not a Costume.”

“Your argument applies to your brother as well as yourself,” said

Ainsworth, wondering at the eloquent wildness of this strange

El-Râmi’s language, and fascinated by it in spite of himself.

“Just so! Only the earth-garment of Féraz is charming and

becoming--mine is not. It is a case of ‘my hair is white but not with

years’--the ‘Prisoner of Chillon’ sort of thing. Good-night!”

“Good-night!” and the artist shook hands warmly with both brothers,

saying to Féraz as he parted from him--“I may expect you then

to-morrow? You will not fail?”

“You may rely upon me!” and Féraz nodded lightly in adieu, and

followed El-Râmi out of the house into the street, where they began

to walk homeward together at a rapid rate. As they went, by some

mutual involuntary instinct they lifted their eyes to the dense blue

heavens, where multitudes of stars were brilliantly visible. Féraz

drew a long deep breath.

“There,” he said, “is the Infinite and Real,--what we have seen of

life to-night is finite and unreal.”

El-Râmi made no reply.

“Do you not think so?” persisted Féraz earnestly.

“I cannot say definitely what is Real and what is Unreal,” said

El-Râmi slowly--“both are so near akin. Féraz, are you aware you

offended Lady Melthorpe to-night?”

“Why should she be offended? I only said just what I thought.”

“Good heavens, my dear boy, if you always go about saying just what

you think, you will find the world too hot to hold you. To say the

least of it, you will never be fit for society.”

“I don’t want to be fit for it,” said Féraz disdainfully, “if Lady

Melthorpe’s ‘at home’ is a picture of it. I want to forget it,--the

most of it, I mean. I shall remember Madame Vassilius because she is

sympathetic and interesting. But for the rest!--my dearest brother, I

am far happier with you.”

El-Râmi took his arm gently.

“Yet you leave me to-morrow to gratify an artist’s whim!” he said.

“Have you thought of that?”

“Oh, but that is nothing--only an hour or two’s sitting. He was so

very anxious that I could not refuse. Does it displease you?”

“My dear Féraz, I am displeased at nothing. You complained of my

authority over you once--and I have determined you shall not complain

again. Consider yourself free.”

“I do not want my liberty,” said Féraz almost petulantly.

“Try it!” responded El-Râmi with a smile and half a sigh. “Liberty is

sweet,--but, like other things, it brings its own responsibilities.”

They walked on till they had almost reached their own door.

“Your story of the priest Philemon was very quaint and pretty,” said

El-Râmi then abruptly. “You meant it as a sort of allegory for me,

did you not?”

Féraz looked wistfully at him, but hesitated to reply.

“It does not quite fit me,” went on El-Râmi gently. “I am not

impervious to love--for I love _you_. Perhaps the angels will take

that fact into consideration when they are settling my thousand or

million years’ punishment.”

There was a touch of quiet pathos in his voice which moved Féraz

greatly, and he could not trust himself to speak. When they entered

their own abode, El-Râmi said the usual “Good-night” in his usual

kindly manner,--but Féraz reverently stooped and kissed the hand

extended to him,--the potent hand that had enriched his life with

poesy and dowered it with dreams.

XXVI.

All the next day El-Râmi was alone. Féraz went out early to fulfil

the appointment made with Roy Ainsworth; no visitors called,--and not

even old Zaroba came near the study, where, shut up with his books and

papers, her master worked assiduously hour after hour, writing as

rapidly as hand and pen would allow, and satisfying his appetite

solely with a few biscuits dipped in wine. Just as the shadows of

evening were beginning to fall, his long solitude was disturbed by the

sharp knock of a telegraph-messenger, who handed him a missive which

ran briefly thus--

“Your brother stays to dine with me.--Ainsworth.”

El-Râmi crushed the paper in his hand, then, flinging it aside, stood

for a moment, lost in meditation, with a sorrowful expression in his

dark eyes.

“Ay me! the emptiness of the world!” he murmured at last--“I shall be

left alone, I suppose, as my betters are left, according to the rule

of this curiously designed and singularly unsatisfactory system of

human life. What do the young care for the solitude of their elders

who have tended and loved them? New thoughts, new scenes, new

aspirations beckon them, and off they go like birds on the

wing,--never to return to the old nest or the old ways. I despise the

majority of women myself,--and yet I pity from my soul all those who

are mothers,--the miserable dignity and pathos of maternity are, in my

opinion, grotesquely painful. To think of the anguish the poor

delicate wretches endure in bringing children at all into the

world,--then, the tenderness and watchful devotion expended on their

early years,--and then--why then, these same children grow up for the

most part into indifferent (when not entirely callous) men and women,

who make their own lives as it seems best to themselves, and almost

forget to whom they owe their very existence. It is hard--bitterly

hard. There ought to be some reason for such a wild waste of love and

affliction. At present, however, I can see none.”

He sighed deeply, and stared moodily into the deepening shadows.

“Loneliness is horrible!” he said aloud, as though addressing some

invisible auditor. “It is the chief terror of death,--for one must

always die alone. No matter how many friends and relatives stand

weeping round the bed, one is absolutely _alone_ at the hour of death,

for the stunned soul wanders blindly

“_out of sight,_

_Far off in a place where it is not heard._”

That solitary pause and shudder on the brink of the Unseen is

fearful,--it unnerves us all to think of it. If Love could help

us,--but even Love grows faint and feeble then.”

As he mused thus, a strange vague longing came over him,--an impulse

arising out of he knew not what suggestion; and, acting on his

thought, he went suddenly and swiftly upstairs, and straight into the

chamber of Lilith. Zaroba was there, and rose from her accustomed

corner silently, and moved with a somewhat feeble step into the

ante-room while El-Râmi bent over the sleeping girl. Lovelier than

ever she seemed that evening,--and, as he stooped above her, she

stretched out her fair white arms and smiled. His heart beat

quickly,--he had, for the moment, ceased to analyse his own

feelings,--and he permitted himself to gaze upon her beauty and absorb

it, without, as usual, taking any thought of the scientific aspect of

her condition.

“Tresses twisted by fairy fingers,

In which the light of the morning lingers!”

he murmured, as he touched a rippling strand of the lovely hair that

lay spread like a fleece of gold floss silk on the pillow near

him,--“Poor Lilith!--Sweet Lilith!”

As if responsive to his words, she turned slightly towards him, and

felt the air blindly with one wandering white hand. Gently he caught

it and imprisoned it within his own,--then, on a strange impulse,

kissed it. To his utter amazement she answered that touch as though it

had been a call.

“I am here, ... my Belovëd!”

He started, and an icy thrill ran through his veins;--that word

“Belovëd” was a sort of electric shock to his system, and sent a

dizzying rush of blood to his brain. What did she mean,--what could

she mean? The last time she had addressed him she had declared that he

was not even her friend--now she called him her “beloved”--as much to

his amazement as his fear. Presently, however, he considered that here

perhaps was some new development of his experiment;--the soul of

Lilith might possibly be in closer communion with him than he had yet

imagined. But, in spite of his attempt to reason away his emotions, he

was nervous, and stood by the couch silently, afraid to speak, and

equally afraid to move. Lilith was silent too. A long pause ensued, in

which the usually subdued tickings of the clock seemed to become

painfully audible. El-Râmi’s breath came and went quickly,--he was

singularly excited,--some subtle warmth from the little hand he held

permeated his veins, and a sense of such utter powerlessness possessed

him as he had never experienced before. What ailed him? He could not

tell. Where was the iron force of his despotic will? He seemed unable

to exert it,--unable even to _think_ coherently while Lilith’s hand

thus rested in his. Had she grown stronger than himself? A tingling

tremor ran through him, as the strange words of the monk’s written

warning suddenly recurred to his memory.

“Beware the end! With Lilith’s love comes Lilith’s freedom.”

But Lilith smiled with placid sweetness, and still left her hand

confidingly in his; he held that hand, so warm and soft and white, and

was loath to let it go,--he studied the rapt expression of the

beautiful face, the lovely curve of the sweet shut lips, the

delicately-veined lids of the closed eyes,--and was dimly conscious of

a sense of vague happiness curiously intermingled with terror. By and

by he began to collect his ideas which had been so suddenly scattered

by the one word “Belovëd,”--and he resolved to break the mystic

silence that oppressed and daunted him.

“Dreaming or waking, is she?” he queried aloud, a little tremulously,

and as though he were talking to himself. “She must be dreaming!”

“Dreaming of joy!” said Lilith softly, and with quick

responsiveness--“only that Joy is no dream! I hear your voice,--I am

conscious of your touch,--almost I see you! The cloud hangs there

between us still--but God is good,--He will remove that cloud.”

El-Râmi listened, perplexed and wondering.

“Lilith,” he said in a voice that strove in vain to assume its wonted

firmness and authority--“What say you of clouds,--you who are in the

full radiance of a light that is quenchless? Have you not told me of a

glory that out-dazzles the sun, in which you move and have your

being,--then what do you know of Shadow?”

“Yours is the Shadow,” replied Lilith--“not mine! I would that I could

lift it from your eyes, that you might see the wonder and the beauty.

Oh, cruel Shadow, that lies between my love and me!”

“Lilith! Lilith!” exclaimed El-Râmi in strange agitation, “Why will

you talk of love!”

“Do you not think of love?” said Lilith--“and must I not respond to

your innermost thought?”

“Not always do you so respond, Lilith!” said El-Râmi quickly,

recovering himself a little, and glad of an opportunity to bring back

his mind to a more scientific level. “Often you speak of things I know

not,--things that perhaps I shall never know----”

“Nay, you _must_ know,” said Lilith, with soft persistence. “Every

unit of life in every planet is bound to know its Cause and Final

Intention. All is clear to me, and will be so to you, hereafter. You

ask me of these things--I tell you,--but you do not believe me;--you

will never believe me till--the end.”

“Beware the end!” The words echoed themselves so distinctly in

El-Râmi’s mind that he could almost have fancied they were spoken

aloud in the room. “What end?” he asked eagerly.

But to this Lilith answered nothing.

He looked at the small sensitive hand he held, and, stroking it

gently, was about to lay it back on her bosom, when all at once she

pressed her fingers closely over his palm, and sat upright, her

delicate face expressive of the most intense emotion, notwithstanding

her closed eyes.

“Write!” she said in a clear penetrating voice that sent silvery

echoes through the room--“write these truths to the world you live in.

Tell the people they all work for Evil, and therefore Evil shall be

upon them. What they sow, even that shall they reap,--with the measure

they have used, it shall be measured to them again. O wild world!--sad

world!--world wherein the pride of wealth, the joy of sin, the cruelty

of avarice, the curse of selfishness, outweigh all pity, all sympathy,

all love! For this God’s law of Compensation makes but one

return--Destruction. Wars shall prevail; plague and famine shall

ravage the nations;--young children shall murder the parents who bore

them; theft and rapine shall devastate the land. For your world is

striving to live without God,--and a world without God is a disease

that must die. Like a burnt-out star this Earth shall fall from its

sphere and vanish utterly--and its sister-planets shall know it no

more. For when it is born again, it will be new.”

The words came from her lips with a sort of fervid eloquence which

seemed to exhaust her, for she grew paler and paler, and her head

began to sink backward on the pillow. El-Râmi gently put his arm

round her to support her, and, as he did so, a kind of supernatural

light irradiated her features.

“Believe me, O my belovëd, believe the words of Lilith!” she

murmured. “There is but one law leading to all Wisdom. Evil generates

Evil, and contains within itself its own retribution. Good generates

Good, and holds within itself the germ of eternal reproduction. Love

begets Love, and from Love is born Immortality!”

Her voice grew fainter,--she sank entirely back on her pillow; yet

once again her lips moved and the word “Immortality!” floated

whisperingly like a sigh. El-Râmi drew his arm away from her, and at

the same instant disengaged his hand from her clasp. She seemed

bewildered at this, and for a minute or two felt in the air as though

searching for some missing treasure,--then her arms fell passively on

each side of her, seemingly inert and lifeless. El-Râmi bent over her

half curiously, half anxiously,--his eyes dwelt on the ruby-like jewel

that heaved gently up and down on her softly rounded bosom,--he

watched the red play of light around it, and on the white satiny skin

beneath,--and then,--all at once his sight grew dazzled and his brain

began to swim. How lovely she was!--how much more than lovely! And how

utterly she was his!--his, body and soul, and in his power! He was

startled at the tenor of his own unbidden thoughts,--whence, in God’s

name, came these new impulses, these wild desires that fired his

blood? ... Furious with himself for what he deemed the weakness of his

own emotions, he strove to regain the mastery over his nerves,--to

settle his mind once more in its usual attitude of cold inflexibility

and indifferent composure,--but all in vain. Some subtle chord in his

mental composition had been touched mysteriously, he knew not how, and

had set all the other chords a-quivering,--and he felt himself all

suddenly to be as subdued and powerless as when his mysterious

visitor, the monk from Cyprus, had summoned up (to daunt him, as he

thought) the strange vision of an Angel in his room.

Again he looked at Lilith;--again he resisted the temptation that

assailed him to clasp her in his arms, to shower a lover’s kisses on

her lips, and thus waken her to the full bitter-sweet consciousness of

earthly life,--till in the sharp extremity of his struggle, and

loathing himself for his own folly, he suddenly dropped on his knees

by the side of the couch and gazed with a vague wild entreaty at the

tranquil loveliness that lay there so royally enshrined.

“Have mercy, Lilith!” he prayed half aloud, and scarcely conscious of

his words. “If you are stronger in your weakness than I in my

strength, have mercy! Repel me,--distrust me, disobey me--but do not

love me! Make me not as one of the foolish for whom a woman’s smile, a

woman’s touch, are more than life, and more than wisdom. O let me not

waste the labour of my days on a freak of passion!--let me not lose

everything I have gained by long study and research, for the mere wild

joy of an hour! Lilith, Lilith! Child, woman, angel!--whatever you

are, have pity upon me! I dare not love you! ... I dare not!”

So murmuring incoherently, he rose, and, walking dizzily like a man

abruptly startled from deep sleep, he went straight out of the room,

never looking back once, else he might have seen how divinely, how

victoriously Lilith smiled!

XXVII.

Reaching his study, he shut himself in and locked the door,--and,

then sitting down, buried his head in his hands and fell to thinking.

Such odd thoughts too!--they came unbidden, and chased one another in

and out of his brain like will-o’-the-wisps in a wilderness. It was

growing late, and Féraz had not yet returned,--but he heeded not the

hour, or his brother’s continued absence,--he was occupied in such a

mental battle with his own inward forces as made him utterly

indifferent to external things. The question he chiefly asked himself

was this:--Of what use was all the science he had discovered and

mastered, if he was not exempt,--utterly exempt from the emotions

common to the most ignorant of men? His pride had been that he was

“above” human nature,--that he was able to look down upon its trivial

joys and sorrows with a supreme and satiric scorn,--that he knew its

ways so well as to be able to calculate its various hesitating moves

in all directions, social and political, with very nearly exact

accuracy. Why then was he shaken to the very centre of his being

to-night, by the haunting vision of an angelic face and the echo of a

sweet faint voice softly breathing the words--“My belovëd!” He could

dominate others; why could he not dominate himself?

“This will never do!” he said aloud at last, starting up from his

brooding attitude--“I must read--I must work,--I must, at all costs,

get out of this absurd frame of mind into which I have unwittingly

fallen. Besides, how often have I not assured myself that for all

practical earthly considerations Lilith is dead--positively dead!”

And to reinstate himself in this idea he unlocked his desk and took

from it a small parchment volume in which he had carefully chronicled

the whole account of his experiment on Lilith from the beginning. One

page was written in the form of a journal--the opposite leaf being

reserved for “queries,” and the book bore the curious superscription

“In Search of the Soul of Lilith” on its cover. The statement began at

once without preamble, thus:

“_August_ 8, 18--. 9 P.M.--Lilith, an Arab girl, aged twelve, dies in

my arms. Cause of death, fever and inanition. Heart ceased to beat at

ten minutes past eight this evening. While the blood is still warm in

the corpse I inject the ‘Electro-flamma’ under the veins, close

beneath the heart. No immediate effect visible.

“11 P.M.--Arab women lay out Lilith’s corpse for burial. Questioned

the people as to her origin. An orphan child, of poor parentage, no

education, and unquiet disposition. Not instructed in religious

matters, but following the religious customs of others by instinct and

imitation. Distinctive features of the girl when in

health--restlessness, temper, animalism, and dislike of restraint.

Troublesome to manage, and not a thinking child by any means.

“_August_ 9. 5 A.M.--The caravan has just started on its way, leaving

the corpse of Lilith with me. The woman Zaroba remains behind. Féraz

I sent away last night in haste. I tell Zaroba part of my intention;

she is superstitious and afraid of me, but willing to serve me. Lilith

remains inanimate. I again use the ‘Electro-flamma,’ this time close

to all the chief arteries. No sign of life.

“_August_ 10. Noon.--I begin rather to despair. As a last resource I

have injected carefully a few drops of ‘Flamma’ close to the brain; it

is the mainspring of the whole machine, and if it can be set in

motion----

“Midnight.--Victory! The brain has commenced to pulsate feebly, and

the heart with it. Breathing has begun, but slowly and with

difficulty. A faint colour has come into the hitherto waxen face.

Success is possible now.

“_August_ 15.--During these last five days Lilith has breathed, and,

to a certain extent, lived. She does not open her eyes, nor move a

muscle of her body, and at times still appears dead. She is kept alive

(if it _is_ life) by the vital fluid, and by that only. I must give

her more time.

“_August_ 20.--I have called her by name, and she has answered--but

how strangely! Where does she learn the things she speaks of? She sees

the Earth, she tells me, like a round ball circling redly in a cloud

of vapours, and she hears music everywhere, and perceives a ‘light

beyond.’ _Where and how does she perceive anything?_”

Here on the opposite side of the page was written the “query,” which

in this case was headed

“Problem.”

“Given, a child’s brain, not wholly developed in its intellectual

capacity, with no impressions save those which are purely material,

and place that brain in a state of perpetual trance, _how does it come

to imagine or comprehend things which science cannot prove?_ Is it the

Soul which conveys these impressions, and, if so, _what_ is the Soul,

and _where_ is it?”

El-Râmi read the passage over and over again, then, sighing

impatiently, closed the book and put it by.

“Since I wrote that, what has she not said--what has she not told me!”

he muttered; “and the ‘child’s brain’ is a child’s brain no longer,

but a woman’s, while she has obtained absolutely no knowledge of any

sort by external means. Yet she--she who was described by those who

knew her in her former life as ‘not a thinking child, troublesome and

difficult to manage,’ she it is who describes to me the scenery and

civilisation of Mars, the inhabitants of Sirius, the wonders of a

myriad of worlds; she it is who talks of the ravishing beauty of

things Divine and immortal, of the glory of the heavens, of the

destined fate of the world. God knows it is very strange!--and the

problem I wrote out six years ago is hardly nearer solving than it was

then. If I could _believe_--but then I cannot--I must always doubt,

and shall not doubt lead to discovery?”

Thus arguing with himself, and scoffing interiorly at the suggestion

which just then came unbidden to his mind--“_Blessed are they which

have not seen and yet believed_”--he turned over some more papers and

sorted them, with the intention and hope of detaching his thoughts

entirely from what had suddenly become the too-enthralling subject of

Lilith’s beauteous personality. Presently he came upon a memorandum,

over which he nodded and smiled with a sort of grim satirical content,

entitled, “The Passions of the Human Animal as Nature made Him;” it

was only a scrap--a hint of some idea which he had intended to make

use of in literary work, but he read it over now with a good deal of

curious satisfaction. It ran thus:

“Man, as a purely natural creature, fairly educated, but wholly

unspiritualised, is a mental composition of: Hunger, Curiosity,

Self-Esteem, Avarice, Cowardice, Lust, Cruelty, Personal Ambition; and

on these vile qualities alone our ‘society’ hangs together; the

virtues have no place anywhere, and do not count at all, save as

conveniently pious metaphors.”

“It is true!” he said aloud--“as true as the very light of the skies!

Now am I, or have I ever been, guilty of these common vices of

ordinary nature? No, no; I have examined my own conscience too often

and too carefully. I have been accused of personal ambition, but even

that is a false accusation, for I do not seek vulgar rewards, or the

noise of notoriety ringing about my name. All that I am seeking to

discover is meant for the benefit of the world; that Humanity,--poor,

wretched, vicious Humanity--may know positively and finally that there

_is_ a Future. For till they _do_ know it, beyond all manner of doubt,

why should they strive to be better? Why should they seek to quell

their animalism? Why should they need to be any better than they are?

And why, above all things, should they be exhorted by their preachers

and teachers to fasten their faith to a Myth, and anchor their hopes

on a Dream?”

At that moment a loud and prolonged rat-tat-tatting at the street door

startled him,--he hastily thrust all his loose manuscripts into a

drawer, and went to answer the summons, glancing at the clock as he

passed it with an air of complete bewilderment,--for it was close upon

two A.M., and he could not imagine how the time had flown. He had

scarcely set foot across the hall before another furious knocking

began, and he stopped abruptly to listen to the imperative clatter

with a curious wondering expression on his dark handsome face. When

the noise ceased again, he began slowly to undo the door.

“Patience, my dear boy,” he said as he flung it open--“is a virtue, as

you must have seen it set forth in copy-books. I provided you with a

latch-key--where is it?--there could not be a more timely hour for its

usage.”

But while he spoke, Féraz, for it was he, had sprung in swiftly like

some wild animal pursued by hunters, and he now stood in the hall,

nearly breathless, staring confusedly at his brother with big,

feverishly-bright bewildered eyes.

“Then I have escaped!” he said in a half-whisper--“I am at

home,--really at home again!”

El-Râmi looked at him steadily,--then, turning away quietly,

carefully shut and bolted the door.

“Have you spent a happy day, Féraz?” he gently inquired.

“Happy!” echoed Féraz--“Happy? Yes. No! Good God!--what do you mean

by happiness?”

El-Râmi looked at him again, and, making no reply to this adjuration,

simply turned about and went into his study. Féraz followed.

“I know what you think,” he said in pained accents--“You think I’ve

been drinking--so I have. But I’m not drunk, for all that. They gave

me wine--bad burgundy--detestable champagne--the sun never shone on

the grapes that made it,--and I took very little of it. It is not that

which has filled me with a terror too real to deserve your scorn,--it

is not that which has driven me home here to you for help and

shelter----”

“It is somewhat late to be ‘driven’ home,” remarked El-Râmi with a

slightly sarcastic smile--“Two in the morning, and--bad champagne or

good,--you are talking, my dear Féraz, to say the least of it, rather

wildly.”

“For God’s sake do not sneer at me!” cried Féraz passionately--“I

shall go mad if you do! Is it as late as you say?--I never knew it. I

fled from them at midnight;--I have wandered about alone under the

stars since then.”

At these words, El-Râmi’s expression changed from satire to

compassion. His fine eyes softened, and their lustrous light grew

deeper and more tender.

“Alone--and under the stars?” he repeated softly--“Are not the two

things incompatible--to _you_? Have you not made the stars your

companions--almost your friends?”

“No, no!” said Féraz, with a swift gesture of utter hopelessness.

“Not now--not now! for all is changed. I see life as it is--hideous,

foul, corruptible, cruel! and the once bright planets look pitiless;

the heavens I thought so gloriously designed are but an impenetrable

vault arched over an ever-filling grave. There is no light, no hope

anywhere; how can there be in the face of so much sin? El-Râmi, why

did you not tell me? why did you not warn me of the accursed evil of

this pulsating movement men call Life? For it seems _I_ have not

lived, I have only dreamed!”

And with a heavy sigh, that seemed wrung from his very heart, he threw

himself wearily into a chair, and buried his head between his hands in

an attitude of utter dejection.

El-Râmi looked at him as he sat thus, with a certain shadow of

melancholy on his own fine features, then he spoke gently:

“Who told you, Féraz, that you have not lived?” he asked.

“Zaroba did, first of all,” returned Féraz reluctantly; “and now he,

the artist Ainsworth, says the same thing. It seems that to men of the

world I look a fool. I know nothing; I am as ignorant as a

barbarian----”

“Of what?” queried his brother. “Of wine, loose women, the race-course

and the gaming-table? Yes, I grant you, you are ignorant of these, and

you may thank God for your ignorance. And these wise ‘men of the

world’ who are so superior to you--in what does their wisdom consist?”

Féraz sat silent, wrapt in meditation. Presently he looked up; his

lashes were wet, and his lips trembled.

“I wish,” he murmured, “I wish I had never gone there,--I wish I had

been content to stay with you.”

El-Râmi laughed a little, but it was to hide a very different

emotion.

“My dear fellow,” he said lightly, “I am not an old woman that I

should wish you to be tied to my apron-strings. Come, make a clean

breast of it; if not the champagne, what is it that has so seriously

disagreed with you?”

“Everything!” replied Féraz emphatically. “The whole day has been one

of discord--what wonder then that I myself am out of tune! When I

first started off from the house this morning, I was full of curious

anticipation--I looked upon this invitation to an artist’s studio as a

sort of break in what I chose to call the even monotony of my

existence,--I fancied I should imbibe new ideas, and be able to

understand something of the artistic world of London if I spent the

day with a man truly distinguished in his profession. When I arrived

at the studio, Mr. Ainsworth was already at work--he was painting--a

woman.”

“Well?” said El-Râmi, seeing that Féraz paused, and stammered

hesitatingly.

“She was nude,--this woman,” he went on in a low shamed voice, a hot

flush creeping over his delicate boyish face,--“A creature without any

modesty or self-respect. A model, Mr. Ainsworth called her,--and it

seems that she took his money for showing herself thus. Her body was

beautiful; like a statue flushed with life,--but she was a devil,

El-Râmi!--the foulness of her spirit was reflected in her bold

eyes--the coarseness of her mind found echo in her voice,--and I--I

sickened at the sight of her; I had never believed in the existence of

fiends,--but _she_ was one!”

El-Râmi was silent, and Féraz resumed--

“As I tell you, Ainsworth was painting her, and he asked me to sit

beside him and watch his work. His request surprised me,--I said to

him in a whisper, ‘Surely she will resent the presence of a stranger?’

He stared at me. ‘She? Whom do you mean?’ he inquired. ‘The woman

there,’ I answered. He burst out laughing, called me ‘an innocent,’

and said she was perfectly accustomed to ‘pose’ before twenty men at a

time, so that I need have no scruples on that score. So I sat down as

he bade me, and watched in silence, and thought----”

“Ah, what did you think?” asked El-Râmi.

“I thought evil things,” answered Féraz deliberately. “And, while

thinking them, I knew they were evil. And I put my own nature under a

sort of analysis, and came to the conclusion that, when a man does

wrong, he is perfectly aware that it _is_ wrong, and that, therefore,

doing wrong deliberately and consciously, he has no right to seek

forgiveness, either through Christ or any other intermediary. He

should be willing to bear the brunt of it, and his prayers should be

for punishment, not for pardon.”

“A severe doctrine,” observed El-Râmi. “Strangely so, for a young man

who has not ‘lived,’ but only ‘dreamed.’”

“In my dreams I see nothing evil,” said Féraz, “and I think nothing

evil. All is harmonious; all works in sweet accordance with a Divine

and Infinite plan, of whose ultimate perfection I am sure. I would

rather dream so, than live as I have lived to-day.”

El-Râmi forbore to press him with any questions, and, after a little

pause, he went on:

“When that woman--the model--went away from the studio, I was as

thankful as one might be for the removal of a plague. She dropped a

curtain over her bare limbs and disappeared like some vanishing evil

spirit. Then Ainsworth asked me to sit to him. I obeyed willingly. He

placed me in a half-sitting, half-recumbent attitude, and began to

sketch. Suddenly, after about half an hour, it occurred to me that he

perhaps wanted to put me in the same picture with that fiend who had

gone, and I asked him the question point-blank. ‘Why, certainly!’ he

said. ‘You will appear as the infatuated lover of that lady, in my

great Academy work.’ Then, El-Râmi, some suppressed rage in me broke

loose. I sprang up and confronted him angrily. ‘Never!’ I cried. ‘You

shall never picture me thus! If you dared to do it, I would rip your

canvas to shreds on the very walls of the Academy itself! I am no

“model,” to sell my personality to you for gold!’ He laughed in that

lazy, unmirthful way of his. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you are certainly not a

model, you are a tiger--a young tiger--quite furious and untamed. I

wish you _would_ go and rip up my picture on the Academy walls, as you

say; it would make my fortune; I should have so many orders for

duplicates. My dear fellow, if you won’t let me put you into my

canvas, you are no use to me. I want your meditative face for the face

of a poet destroyed by a passion for Phryne. I really think you might

oblige me.’ ‘Never!’ I said; ‘the thing would be a libel and a lie. My

face is not the face you want. You want a weak face, a round foolish

brow, and a receding chin. Why, as God made me, and as I am, every one

of my features would falsify your picture’s story! The man who

voluntarily sacrifices his genius and his hopes of heaven to vulgar

vice and passion must have weakness in him somewhere, and as a true

artist you are bound to show that weakness in the features you

portray.’ ‘And have you no weakness, you young savage?’ he asked. ‘Not

that weakness!’ I said. ‘The wretched incapacity of will that brings

the whole soul down to a grovelling depth of materialism--that is not

in me!’ I spoke angrily, El-Râmi, perhaps violently; but I could not

help myself. He stared at me curiously, and began drawing lines on his

palette with his brush dipped in colour. ‘You are a very singular

young fellow,’ he said at last. ‘But I must tell you that it was the

fair Irene Vassilius who suggested to me that your face would be

suitable for that of the poet in my picture. I wanted to please

her----’ ‘You will please her more by telling her what I say,’ I

interrupted him abruptly. ‘Tell her----’ ‘That you are a new

Parsifal,’ he said mockingly. ‘Ah, she will never believe it! All men

in her opinion are either brutes or cowards.’ Then he took up a fresh

square of canvas, and added: ‘Well, I promise you I will not put you

in my picture, as you have such a rooted objection to figuring in

public as a slave of Phryne, though, I assure you, most young fellows

would be proud of such a distinction; for one is hardly considered a

“man” nowadays unless one professes to be “in love”--God save the

mark!--with some female beast of the stage or the music-hall. Such is

life, my boy! There! now sit still with that look of supreme scorn on

your countenance, and that will do excellently.’ ‘On your word of

honour, you will not place me in your picture?’ I said. ‘On my word of

honour,’ he replied. So, of course, I could not doubt him. And he drew

my features on his canvas quickly, and with much more than ordinary

skill; and, when he had finished his sketch, he took me out to lunch

with him at a noisy, crowded place, called the ‘Criterion.’ There were

numbers of men and women there, eating and drinking, all of a low

type, I thought, and some of them of a most vulgar and insolent

bearing, more like dressed-up monkeys than human beings, I told

Ainsworth; but he laughed, and said they were very fair specimens of

civilised society. Then, after lunch, we went to a club, where several

men were smoking and throwing cards about. They asked me to play, and

I told them I knew nothing of the game. Whereupon they explained it;

and I said it seemed to me to be quite an imbecile method of losing

money. Then they laughed uproariously. One said I was ‘very fresh,’

whatever that might mean. Another asked Ainsworth what he had brought

me there for, and Ainsworth answered: ‘To show you one of the greatest

wonders of the century--a really _young_ man in his youth,’ and then

they laughed again. Later on he took me into the Park. There I saw

Madame Vassilius in her carriage. She looked fair and cold, and proud

and weary all at once. Her horses came to a standstill under the

trees, and Ainsworth went up and spoke to her. She looked at me very

earnestly as she gave me her hand, and only said one thing: ‘What a

pity you are not with your brother!’ I longed to ask her why, but she

seemed unwilling to converse, and soon gave the signal to her coachman

to drive on--in fact, she went at once out of the Park. Then Ainsworth

got angry and sullen, and said: ‘I hate intellectual women! That

pretty scribbler has made so much money that she is perfectly

independent of man’s help--and, being independent, she is insolent.’ I

was surprised at his tone. I said I could not see where he perceived

the insolence. ‘Can you not?’ he asked. ‘She studies men instead of

loving them; that is where she is insolent--and--insufferable!’ He was

so irritated that I did not pursue the subject, and he then pressed me

to stay and dine with him. I accepted--and I am sorry I did.”

“Why?” asked El-Râmi in purposely indifferent tones. “At present, so

far as you have told me, your day seems to have passed in a very

harmless manner. A peep at a model, a lunch at the Criterion, a glance

at a gaming-club, a stroll in the Park--what could be more ordinary?

There is no tragedy in it, such as you seem inclined to imagine; it is

all the merest bathos.”

Féraz looked up indignantly, his eyes sparkling.

“Is there nothing tragic in the horrible, stifling, strangling

consciousness of evil surrounding one like a plague?” he demanded

passionately. “To know and to feel that God is far off, instead of

near; that one is shut up in a prison of one’s own making, where sweet

air and pure light cannot penetrate; to be perfectly conscious that

one is moving and speaking with difficulty and agitation in a thick,

choking atmosphere of lies--lies--all lies! Is that not tragic? Is

that all bathos?”

“My dear fellow, it is life!” said El-Râmi sedately. “It is what you

wanted to see, to know, and to understand.”

“It is _not_ life!” declared Féraz hotly. “The people who accept it

as such are fools, and delude themselves. Life, as God gave it to us,

is beautiful and noble--grandly suggestive of the Future beyond; but

you will not tell me there is anything beautiful or noble or

suggestive in the life led by such men and women as I saw to-day. With

the exception of Madame Vassilius--and she, I am told, is considered

eccentric and a ‘visionary’--I have seen no one who would be worth

talking to for an hour. At Ainsworth’s dinner, for instance, there

were some men who called themselves artists, and they talked, not of

art, but of money; how much they could get, and how much they _would_

get from certain patrons of theirs whom they called ‘full-pursed

fools.’ Well, and that woman--that model I told you of--actually came

to dine at Ainsworth’s table, and other coarse women like her. Surely,

El-Râmi, you can imagine what their conversation was like? And as the

time went on things became worse. There was no restraint, and at last

I could stand it no longer. I rose up from the table, and left the

room without a word. Ainsworth followed me; he was flushed with wine,

and he looked foolish. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked. ‘Mamie

Dillon,’ that was the name of his model, ‘wants to talk to you.’ I

made him no answer. ‘Where are you going?’ he repeated angrily. ‘Home,

of course,’ I replied, ‘I have stayed here too long as it is. Let me

pass.’ He was excited; he had taken too much wine, I know, and he

scarcely knew what he was saying. ‘Oh, I understand you!’ he

exclaimed. ‘You and Irene Vassilius are of a piece--all purity, eh!

all disgust at the manners and customs of the “lower animals.” Well, I

tell you we are no worse than any one else in modern days. My lord the

duke’s conversation differs very little from that of his groom; and

the latest imported American heiress in search of a title rattles on

to the full as volubly and ruthlessly as Mamie Dillon. Go home, if go

you must; and take my advice, if you don’t like what you have seen in

the world to-day, _stay_ home for good. Stay in your shell, and dream

your dreams; I dare say they will profit you quite as much as our

realities!’ He laughed, and as I left him I said, ‘You mistake! it is

you who are “dreaming,” as you call it; dreaming a bad dream, too; it

is I who _live_.’ Then I went out of the house, as I tell you, and

wandered alone, under the stars, and thought bitter things.”

“Why ‘bitter’?” asked El-Râmi.

“I do not know,” returned Féraz moodily, “except that all the world

seemed wrong. I wondered how God could endure so much degradation on

the face of one of His planets, without some grand, divine protest.”

“The protest is always there,” said El-Râmi quickly. “Silent, but

eternal, in the existence of Good in the midst of Evil.”

Féraz lifted his eyes and rested their gaze on his brother with an

expression of unutterable affection.

“El-Râmi, keep me with you!” he entreated; “never let me leave you

again! I think I must be crazed if the world is what it _seems_, and

my life is so entirely opposed to it; but, if so, I would rather be

crazed than sane. In my wanderings to-night, on my way home hither, I

met young girls and women who must have been devils in disguise, so

utterly were they lost to every sense of womanhood and decency. I saw

men, evil-looking and wretched, who seemed waiting but the chance to

murder, or commit any other barbarous crime for gold. I saw little

children, starving and in rags; old and feeble creatures, too, in the

last stage of destitution, without a passer-by to wish them well; all

things seemed foul and dark and hopeless, and when I entered here I

felt--ah, God knows what I felt!--that you were my Providence, that

this was my home, and that surely some Angel dwelt within and hallowed

it with safety and pure blessing!”

A sudden remorse softened his voice, his beautiful eyes were dim with

tears.

“He remembers and thinks of Lilith!” thought El-Râmi quickly, with a

singular jealous tightening emotion at his heart; but aloud he said

gently:

“If one day in the ‘world’ has taught you to love this simple abode of

ours, my dear Féraz, more than you did before, you have had a most

valuable lesson. But do not be too sure of yourself. Remember, you

resented my authority, and you wished to escape from my influence.

Well, now----”

“Now I voluntarily place myself under both,” said Féraz rising and

standing before him with bent head. “El-Râmi, my brother and my

friend, do with me as you will! If from you come my dreams, in God’s

name let me dream! If from your potent will, exerted on my spirit,

springs the fountain of the music which haunts my life, let me ever be

a servant of that will! With you I have had happiness, health, peace,

and mysterious joy, such as the world could never comprehend; away

from you, though only for a day, I have been miserable. Take my

complete obedience, El-Râmi, for what it is worth; you give me more

than my life’s submission can ever repay.”

El-Râmi stepped up more closely to him, and, laying both hands on his

shoulders, looked him seriously in the eyes.

“My dear boy, consider for a moment how you involve yourself,” he said

earnestly, yet with great kindliness. “Remember the old Arabic volume

you chanced upon, and what it said concerning the mystic powers of

‘influence.’ Did you quite realise it, and all that it implies?”

Féraz met his searching gaze steadily.

“Quite,” he replied. “So much and so plainly do I realise it that I

even attribute everything done in the world to ‘influence.’ Each one

of us is ‘influenced’ by something or some one. Even you, my dearest

brother, share the common lot, though I dare say you do not quite

perceive where your ruling force is generated, your own powers being

so extraordinary. Ainsworth, for example, is ‘influenced’ in very

opposite directions by very opposite forces--Irene Vassilius, and--his

Mamie Dillon! Now I would rather have _your_ spell laid upon my life

than that of the speculator, the gambler, the drinker, or the vile

woman, for none of these can possibly give satisfaction, at least not

to me; while your wizard wand invokes nothing but beauty, harmony, and

peace of conscience. So I repeat it, El-Râmi, I submit to you utterly

and finally--must I entreat you to accept my submission?”

He smiled, and the old happy look that he was wont to wear began to

radiate over his face, which had till then seemed worn and wearied.

El-Râmi’s dark features appeared to reflect the smile, as he gently

touched his brother’s clustering curls, and said playfully:

“In spite of Zaroba?”

“In spite of Zaroba,” echoed Féraz mirthfully. “Poor Zaroba! she does

not seem well, or happy. I fear she has offended you?”

“No, no,” said El-Râmi meditatively, “she has not offended me; she is

too old to offend me. I cannot be angry with sorrowful and helpless

age. And, if she is not well, we will make her well, and if she is not

happy we will make her happy, ... and be happy ourselves--shall it not

be so?” His voice was very soft, and he seemed to talk at random, and

to be conscious of it, for he roused himself with a slight start, and

said in firmer tones: “Good-night, Féraz; good-night, dear lad. Rest,

and dream!”

He smiled as Féraz impulsively caught his hand and kissed it, and

after the young man had left the room he still stood, lost in a

reverie, murmuring under his breath: “And be happy ourselves! Is that

possible--could that be possible--in _this_ world?”

XXVIII.

Next day towards noon, while Féraz, tired with his brief “worldly”

experiences, was still sleeping. El-Râmi sought out Zaroba. She

received him in the ante-room of the chamber of Lilith with more than

her customary humility; her face was dark and weary, and her whole

aspect one of resigned and settled melancholy. El-Râmi looked at her

kindly, and with compassion.

“The sustaining of wrath is an injury to the spirit,” he wrote on the

slate which served for that purpose in his usual way of communication

with her; “I no longer mistrust you. Once more I say, be faithful and

obedient. I ask no more. The spell of silence shall be lifted from

your lips to-day.”

She read swiftly, and with apparent incredulity, and a tremor passed

over her tall, gaunt frame. She looked at him wonderingly and

wistfully, while he, standing before her, returned the look

steadfastly, and seemed to be concentrating all his thoughts upon her

with some fixed intention. After a minute or two he turned aside, and

again wrote on the slate; this time the words ran thus:

“Speak; you are at liberty.”

With a deep shuddering sigh, she extended her hands appealingly.

“Master!” she exclaimed; and, before he could prevent her, she had

dropped on her knees. “Forgive--forgive!” she muttered. “Terrible is

thy power, O El-Râmi, ruler of spirits! terrible, mystic, and

wonderful! God must have given thee thy force, and I am but the

meanest of slaves to rebel against thy command. Yet out of wisdom

comes not happiness, but great grief and pain; and as I live,

El-Râmi, in my rebellion I but dreamed of a love that should bring

thee joy! Pardon the excess of my zeal, for lo, again and yet again I

swear fidelity! and may all the curses of heaven fall on me if this

time I break my vow!”

She bent her head--she would have kissed the floor at his feet, but

that he quickly raised her up and prevented her.

“There is nothing more to pardon,” he wrote. “Your wisdom is possibly

greater than mine. I know there is nothing stronger than Love, nothing

better perhaps; but Love is my foe whom I must vanquish,--lest he

should vanquish me!”

And while Zaroba yet pored over these words, her black eyes dilating

with amazement at the half confession of weakness implied in them, he

turned away and left the room.