"Well, child, you listen perhaps, but you are not convinced. Realise,
if you can, that these fantastic chimeras of a past and future life
exist only in the heated imagination of the abnormal idealist. There is
nothing beyond our actual sight and immediate living consciousness;--we
know we are born and that we die--but why, we cannot tell and never
shall be able to tell. We must try and manage the 'In-Between,'--the
gap dividing birth and death,--as best we can, and that's all. I wish
you would settle down to these facts reasonably--you would be far
better balanced in mind and action--"
"If I thought as you do,"--I interrupted him--"I would jump from this
vessel into the sea and let the waters close over me! There would be
neither use nor sense in living for an 'In-Between' leading merely to
nothingness."
He passed his hand across his brows perplexedly.
"It certainly seems useless,"--he admitted--"but there it is. It is
better to accept it than run amok among inexplicable infinities."
We were interrupted here by the sailors busying themselves in
preparations for getting the yacht under way, and our conversation
being thus broken off abruptly was not again resumed. By eleven o'clock
we were steaming out of Loch Scavaig, and as I looked back on the
sombre mountain-peaks that stood sentinel-wise round the deeply hidden
magnificence of Loch Coruisk, I wondered if my visionary experience
there had been only the work of my own excited imagination, or whether
it really had foundation in fact? The letter from Santoris lay against
my heart as actual testimony that he at least was real--that I had met
and known him, and that so far as anything could be believed he had
declared himself my 'lover'! But was ever love so expressed?--and had
it ever before such a far-off beginning?
I soon ceased to perplex myself with futile speculations on the
subject, however, and as the last peaks of the Scavaig hills vanished
in pale blue distance I felt as if I had been brought suddenly back
from a fairyland to a curiously dull and commonplace world. Everyone on
board the 'Diana' seemed occupied with the veriest trifles,--Catherine
remained too ill to appear all day, and Dr. Brayle was in almost
constant attendance upon her. A vague sense of discomfort pervaded the
whole atmosphere of the yacht,--she was a floating palace filled with
every imaginable luxury, yet now she seemed a mere tawdry upholsterer's
triumph compared with the exquisite grace and taste of the 'Dream'--and
I was eager to be away from her. I busied myself during the day in
packing my things ready for departure with the eagerness of a child
leaving school for the holidays, and I was delighted when we arrived at
Portree and anchored there that evening. It was after dinner, at about
nine o'clock, that Catherine sent for me, hearing I had determined to
go next morning. I found her in her bed, looking very white and feeble,
with a scared look in her eyes which became intensified the moment she
saw me.
"You are really going away?" she said, faintly--"I hope we have not
offended you?"