He bent his head and looked at me searchingly,--a smile was on his lips
and his eyes were full of tenderness.
"Till to-morrow is not long to wait,"--he said--"Not long--after so
many years! Good-night!"
A sense of calm and sweet assurance swept over me.
"Good-night!" I answered, with a smile of happy response to his
own--"Till to-morrow!"
We were close to the gangway where the others already stood. In another
couple of minutes he had made his adieux to our whole party and was on
his way back to his own vessel. The boat in which he sat, rowed
strongly by our men, soon disappeared like a black blot on the general
darkness of the water, yet we remained for some time watching, as
though we could see it even when it was no longer visible.
"A strange fellow!" said Dr. Brayle when we moved away at last,
flinging the end of his cigar over the yacht side--"Something of
madness and genius combined."
Mr. Harland turned quickly upon him.
"You mistake,"--he answered--"There's no madness, though there is
certainly genius. He's of the same mind as he was when I knew him at
college. There never was a saner or more brilliant scholar."
"It's curious you should meet him again like this,"--said
Catherine--"But surely, father, he's not as old as you are?"
"He's about three and a half years younger--that's all."
Dr. Brayle laughed.
"I don't believe it for a moment!" he said--"I think he's playing a
part. He's probably not the man you knew at Oxford at all."
We were then going to our cabins for the night, and Mr. Harland paused
as these words were said and faced us.
"He IS the man!"--he said, emphatically--"I had my doubts of him at
first, but I was wrong. As for 'playing a part,' that would be
impossible to him. He is absolutely truthful--almost to the verge of
cruelty!" A curious expression came into his eyes, as of hidden fear.
"In one way I am glad to have met him again--in another I am sorry. For
he is a disturber of the comfortable peace of conventions. You"--here
he regarded me suddenly, as if he had almost forgotten my
presence--"will like him. You have many ideas in common and will be
sure to get on well together. As for me, I am his direct opposite,--the
two poles are not wider apart than we are in our feelings, sentiments
and beliefs." He paused, seeming to be troubled by the passing cloud of
some painful thought--then he went on--"There is one thing I should
perhaps explain, especially to you, Brayle, to save useless argument.
It is, of course, a 'craze'--but craze or not, he is absolutely
immovable on one point which he calls the great Fact of Life,--that
there is and can be no Death,--that Life is eternal and therefore in
all its forms indestructible."
"Does he consider himself immune from the common lot of mortals?" asked
Dr. Brayle, with a touch of derision.
"He denies 'the common lot' altogether"--replied Mr. Harland--"For him,
each individual life is a perpetual succession of progressive changes,
and he holds that a change IS never and CAN never be made till the
person concerned has prepared the next 'costume' or mortal presentment
of immortal being, according to voluntary choice and liking."
"Then he is mad!" exclaimed Catherine. "He must be mad!"