"No indeed!"--I answered--"Why should I be offended?"
"Father is vexed you are going,"--she went on--"He says it is all my
silly nonsense and hysterical fancies--do you think it is?"
"I prefer not to say what I think,"--I replied, gently. "Dear
Catherine, there are some things in life which cannot be explained, and
it is better not to try and explain them. But believe me, I can never
thank you enough for this yachting trip--you have done more for me than
you will ever know!--and so far from being 'offended' I am
grateful!--grateful beyond all words!"
She held my hands, looking at me wistfully.
"You will go away,"--she said, in a low tone--"and we shall perhaps
never meet again. I don't think it likely we shall. People often try to
meet again and never do--haven't you noticed that? It seems fated that
they shall only know each other for a little while just to serve some
purpose, and then part altogether. Besides, you live in a different
world from ours. You believe in things that I can't even
understand--You think there is a God--and you think each human being
has a soul--"
"Are you not taught the same in your churches?" I interrupted.
She looked startled.
"Oh yes!--but then one never thinks seriously about it! You know that
if we DID think seriously about it we could never live as we do. One
goes to church for convention's sake--because it's respectable; but
suppose you were to say to a clergyman that if your soul is 'immortal'
it follows in reason that it must always have existed and always will
exist, he would declare you to be 'unorthodox.' That's where all the
puzzle and contradiction comes in--so that I don't believe in the soul
at all."
"Are you sure you do not?" I enquired, meaningly.
She was silent. Then she suddenly broke out.
"Well, I don't want to believe in it! I don't want to think about it!
I'd rather not! It's terrible! If a soul has never died and never will
die, its burden of memories must be awful!--horrible!--no hell could be
worse!"
"But suppose they are beautiful and happy memories?" I suggested.
She shuddered.
"They couldn't be! We all fail somewhere."
This was true enough, and I offered no comment.
"I feel,"--she went on, hesitatingly--"that you are leaving us for some
undiscovered country--and that you will reach some plane of thought and
action to which we shall never rise. I don't think I am sorry for this.
I am not one of those who want to rise. I should be perfectly content
to live a few years in a moderate state of happiness and then drop into
oblivion--and I think most people are like me."
"Very unambitious!" I said, smiling.
"Yes--I daresay it is--but one gets tired of it all. Tired of things
and people--at least I do. Now that man Santoris--"
Despite myself, I felt the warm blood flushing my cheeks.
"Yes? What of him?" I queried, lightly.
"Well, I can understand that HE has always been alive!" and she turned
her eyes upon me with an expression of positive dread--"Immensely,
actively, perpetually alive! He seems to hold some mastery over the
very air! I am afraid of him--terribly afraid! It is a relief to me to
know that he and his strange yacht have gone!"
"But, Catherine,"--I ventured to say--"the yacht was not really
'strange,'--it was only moved by a different application of electricity
from that which the world at present knows. You would not call it
'strange' if the discovery made by Mr. Santoris were generally adopted?"
She sighed.
"Perhaps not! But just now it seems a sort of devil's magic to me.
Anyhow, I'm glad he's gone. You're sorry, I suppose?"
"In a way I am,"--I answered, quietly--"I thought him very kind and
charming and courteous--no one could be a better host or a pleasanter
companion. And I certainly saw nothing 'devilish' about him. As for
that collar of jewels, there are plenty of so-called 'thought-readers'
who could have found out its existence and said as much of it as he
did--"
She uttered a low cry.
"Don't speak of it!" she said--"For Heaven's sake, don't speak of it!"
She buried her face in her pillow, and I waited silently for her to
recover. When she turned again towards me, she said--
"I am not well yet,--I cannot bear too much. I only want you to know
before you go away that I have no unkind feeling towards you,--things
seem pushing me that way, but I have not really!--and you surely will
believe me--"
"Surely!" I said, earnestly--"Dear Catherine, do not worry yourself!
These impressions of yours will pass."
"I hope so!" she said--"I shall try to forget! And you--you will meet
Mr. Santoris again, do you think?"