"Of course! I feel equal to anything! Besides, I've been very lazy on
board the 'Diana,' taking no real exercise. A walk will do me good."
Mr. Harland seated himself in one of the long reclining chairs which
were placed temptingly under an awning on deck. His eyes were clearer
and his face more composed than I had ever seen it.
"Those drops you gave me are magical, Santoris!"--he said--"I wish
you'd let me have a supply!"
Santoris stood looking down upon him kindly.
"It would not be safe for you,"--he answered--"The remedy is a
sovereign one if used very rarely, and with extreme caution, but in
uninstructed hands it is dangerous. Its work is to stimulate certain
cells--at the same time (like all things taken in excess) it can
destroy them. Moreover, it would not agree with Dr. Brayle's medicines."
"You really and truly think Brayle an impostor?"
"Impostor is a strong word! No!--I will give him credit for believing
in himself up to a certain point. But of course he knows that the
so-called 'electric' treatment he is giving to your daughter is
perfectly worthless, just as he knows that she is not really ill."
"Not really ill!"
Mr. Harland almost bounced up in his chair, while I felt a secret
thrill of satisfaction. "Why, she's been a miserable, querulous invalid
for years--"
"Since she broke off her engagement to a worthless rascal"--said
Santoris, calmly. "You see, I know all about it."
I listened, astonished. How did he know, how could he know, the
intimate details of a life like Catherine's which could scarcely be of
interest to a man such as he was?
"Your daughter's trouble is written on her face"--he went on--"Warped
affections, slain desires, disappointed hopes,--and neither the
strength nor the will to turn these troubles to blessings. Therefore
they resemble an army of malarious germs which are eating away her
moral fibre. Brayle knows that what she needs is the belief that
someone has an interest not only in her, but in the particularly morbid
view she has taught herself to take of life. He is actively showing
that interest. The rest is easy,--and will be easier when--well!--when
you are gone."
Mr. Harland was silent, drawing slow whiffs from his cigar. After a
long pause, he said--
"You are prejudiced, and I think you are mistaken. You only saw the man
for a few minutes last night, and you know nothing of him--"
"Nothing,--except what he is bound to reveal,"--answered Santoris.
"What do you mean?"
"You will not believe me if I tell you,"--and Santoris, drawing a chair
close to mine, sat down,--"Yet I am sure this lady, who is your friend
and guest, will corroborate what I say,--though, of course, you will
not believe HER! In fact, my dear Harland, as you have schooled
yourself to believe NOTHING, why urge me to point out a truth you
decline to accept? Had you lived in the time of Galileo you would have
been one of his torturers!"
"I ask you to explain," said Mr. Harland, with a touch of
pique--"Whether I accept your explanation or not is my own affair."
"Quite!" agreed Santoris, with a slight smile--"As I told you long ago
at Oxford, a man's life is his own affair entirely. He can do what he
likes with it. But he can no more command the RESULT of what he does
with it than the sun can conceal its rays. Each individual human being,
male and female alike, moves unconsciously in the light of
self-revealment, as though all his or her faults and virtues were
reflected like the colours in a prism, or were set out in a window for
passers-by to gaze upon. Fortunately for the general peace of society,
however, most passers-by are not gifted with the sight to see the
involuntary display."
"You speak in enigmas," said Harland, impatiently--"And I'm not good at
guessing them."
Santoris regarded him fixedly. His eyes were luminous and compassionate.
"The simplest truths are to you 'enigmas,'" he said, regretfully--"A
pity it is so! You ask me what I mean when I say a man is 'bound to
reveal himself.' The process of self-revealment accompanies
self-existence, as much as the fragrance of a rose accompanies its
opening petals. You can never detach yourself from your own enveloping
aura neither in body nor in soul. Christ taught this when He
said:--'Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good
works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.' Your
'light'--remember!--that word 'light' is not used here as a figure of
speech but as a statement of fact. A positive 'light' surrounds you--it
is exhaled and produced by your physical and moral being,--and those
among us who have cultivated their inner organs of vision see IT before
they see YOU. It can be of the purest radiance,--equally it can be a
mere nebulous film,--but whatever the moral and physical condition of
the man or woman concerned it is always shown in the aura which each
separate individual expresses for himself or herself. In this way Dr.
Brayle reveals his nature to me as well as the chief tendency of his
thoughts,--in this way YOU reveal yourself and your present state of
health,--it is a proved test that cannot go wrong."
Mr. Harland listened with his usual air of cynical tolerance and
incredulity.
"I have heard this sort of nonsense before,"--he said--"I have even
read in otherwise reliable scientific journals about the 'auras' of
people affecting us with antipathies or sympathies for or against them.
But it's a merely fanciful suggestion and has no foundation in reality."
"Why did you wish me to explain, then?" asked Santoris--"I can only
tell you what I know, and--what I see!"
Harland moved restlessly, holding his cigar between his fingers and
looking at it curiously to avoid, as I thought, the steadfast
brilliancy of the compelling eyes that were fixed upon him.
"These 'auras,'" he went on, indifferently, "are nothing but
suppositions. I grant you that certain discoveries are being made
concerning the luminosity of trees and plants which in some states of
the atmosphere give out rays of light,--but that human beings do the
same I decline to believe."
"Of course!" and Santoris leaned back in his chair easily, as though at
once dismissing the subject from his mind--"A man born blind must needs
decline to believe in the pleasures of sight."
Harland's wrinkled brow deepened its furrows in a frown.
"Do you mean to tell me,--do you DARE to tell me"--he said--"that you
see any 'aura,' as you call it, round my personality?"
"I do, most assuredly,"--answered Santoris--"I see it as distinctly as
I see yourself in the midst of it. But there is no actual light in
it,--it is mere grey mist,--a mist of miasma."
"Thank you!" and Harland laughed harshly--"You are complimentary!"
"Is it a time for compliments?" asked Santoris, with sudden
sternness--"Harland, would you have me tell you ALL?"
Harland's face grew livid. He threw up his hand with a warning gesture.
"No!" he said, almost violently. He clutched the arm of his chair with
a nervous grip, and for one instant looked like a hunted creature
caught red-handed in some act of crime. Recovering himself quickly, he
forced a smile.
"What about our little friend's 'aura'?"-he queried, glancing at
me--"Does she 'express' herself in radiance?"
Santoris did not reply for a moment. Then he turned his eyes towards me
almost wistfully.
"She does!"--he answered--"I wish you could see her as I see her!"
There was a moment's silence. My face grew warm, and I was vaguely
embarrassed, but I met his gaze fully and frankly.
"And _I_ wish I could see myself as you see me,"--I said, half
laughingly--"For I am not in the least aware of my own aura."
"It is not intended that anyone should be visibly aware of it in their
own personality,"--he answered--"But I think it is right we should
realise the existence of these radiant or cloudy exhalations which we
ourselves weave around ourselves, so that we may 'walk in the light as
children of the light.'"
His voice sank to a grave and tender tone which checked Mr. Harland in
something he was evidently about to say, for he bit his lip and was
silent.
I rose from my chair and moved away then, looking--from the smooth deck
of the 'Dream' shadowed by her full white sails out to the peaks of the
majestic hills whose picturesque beauties are sung in the wild strains
of Ossian, and the projecting crags, deep hollows and lofty pinnacles
outlining the coast with its numerous waterfalls, lochs and shadowy
creeks. A thin and delicate haze of mist hung over the land like a pale
violet veil through which the sun shot beams of rose and gold, giving a
vaporous unsubstantial effect to the scenery as though it were gliding
with us like a cloud pageant on the surface of the calm water. The
shores of Loch Scavaig began to be dimly seen in the distance, and
presently Captain Derrick approached Mr. Harland, spy-glass in hand.
"The 'Diana' must have gone for a cruise,"--he said, in rather a
perturbed way--"As far as I can make out, there's no sign of her where
we left her this morning."
Mr. Harland heard this indifferently.
"Perhaps Catherine wished for a sail,"--he answered. "There are plenty
on board to manage the vessel. You're not anxious?"
"Oh, not at all, sir, if you are satisfied,"--Derrick answered.
Mr. Harland stretched himself luxuriously in his chair.
"Personally, I don't mind where the 'Diana' has gone to for the
moment,"--he said, with a laugh--"I'm particularly comfortable where I
am. Santoris!"
"Here!" And Santoris, who had stepped aside to give some order to one
of his men, came up at the call.
"What do you say to leaving me on board while you and my little friend
go and see your sunset effect on Loch Coruisk by yourselves?"
Santoris heard this suggestion with an amused look.
"You don't care for sunsets?"
"Oh yes, I do,--in a way. But I've seen so many of them--"
"No two alike"--put in Santoris.
"I daresay not. Still, I don't mind missing a few. Just now I should
like a sound sleep rather than a sunset. It's very unsociable, I
know,--but--" here he half closed his eyes and seemed inclined to doze
off there and then.
Santoris turned to me.
"What do you say? Can you put up with my company for an hour or two and
allow me to be your guide to Loch Coruisk? Or would you, too, rather
not see the sunset?",
Our eyes met. A thrill of mingled joy and fear ran through me, and
again I felt that strange sense of power and dominance which had
previously overwhelmed me.
"Indeed, I have set my heart on going to Loch Coruisk"--I answered,
lightly--"And I cannot let you off your promise to take me there! We
will leave Mr. Harland to his siesta."
"You're sure you do not mind?"--said Harland, then, opening his eyes
drowsily--"You will be perfectly safe with Santoris."
I smiled. I did not need that assurance. And I talked gaily with
Captain Derrick on the subject of the 'Diana' and the course of her
possible cruise, while he scanned the waters in search of her,--and I
watched with growing impatience our gradual approach to Loch Scavaig,
which in the bright afternoon looked scarcely less dreary than at
night, especially now that the 'Diana' was no longer there to give some
air of human occupation to the wild and barren surroundings. The sun
was well inclined towards the western horizon when the 'Dream' reached
her former moorings and noiselessly dropped anchor, and about twenty
minutes later the electric launch belonging to the vessel was lowered
and I entered it with Santoris, a couple of his men managing the boat
as it rushed through the dark steel-coloured water to the shore.