The stillness deepened. It seemed to myself that I could hear the
quickened beating of every pulse in my body. A curious vague terror
began to possess me,--I fought against its insidious influence, and
bending my head down over the paper I had set out before me, I prepared
to write. After a few minutes I managed to gain some control over my
nerves, and started to put down clearly and in sequence the things
Aselzion had told me, though I knew there was little danger of my ever
forgetting them. And then--a sudden sensation came over me which forced
me to realise that something or someone was in the room, looking
steadfastly at me.
With an effort, I raised my head, and saw nothing at first--then, by
degrees, I became aware that a Shadow, dark and impenetrable, stood
between me and the open window. At first it seemed simply a formless
mass of black vapour,--but very gradually it assumed the outline of a
Shape which did not seem human. I laid down my pen,--and, with my heart
thumping hammer-strokes of fear, looked at this strange Darkness
gathered as it were in one place and blocking out the silver gleam of
the moon. As I looked, all the light in my room was suddenly
extinguished. A cry rose involuntarily to my lips--and physical fright
began to gain the mastery over me. For with the increasing gloom the
mysterious Shadow grew more and more defined--a blackness standing out
as it were against another blackness,--the pale glint of the moonbeams
only illumining it faintly as a cloud may be edged with a suggestion of
light. It was not motionless,--it stirred now and then as though about
to lift itself to some supernatural stature and bend above me or swoop
down upon me like an embodied storm,--and as I still gazed upon it
fearingly, every nerve strained to an almost unsupportable tension, I
could have sworn that two eyes, large and luminous, were fixed with a
searching, pitiless intensity on mine. It is impossible to describe
what I felt,--a sense of sick, swooning horror overcame me,--my head
swam giddily, and I could not now utter a sound.
Trembling violently, I rose to my feet in a kind of mechanical impulse,
determined to turn away from the dreadful contemplation of this
formless Phantom, when suddenly, as if by a lightning flash of
conviction, the thought came to me that it was not by coward avoidance
that I could expect to overcome either my own fears or the nameless
danger which apparently threatened me. I closed my eyes and retreated,
as it were, within myself to find that centre-poise of my own spirit
which I knew must remain an invincible force despite all attack, being
in itself immortal,--and I mentally barricaded my soul with thoughts of
armed resistance. Then, opening my eyes again, I saw that the Shadow
loomed blacker and vaster--while the luminance around it was more
defined, and was not the radiance of the moon, but some other light
that was ghostly and terrifying. But I had now regained a little
courage,--and slight as it was I held to it as my last hope, and
gradually steadied myself upon it like a drowning creature clinging to
a plank for rescue. Presently I found myself able to ask questions of
my inner consciousness. What, after all, could this Phantom--if Phantom
it were--do to work me harm? Could it kill me with sheer terror? Surely
in that case the terror would be my own fault, for why should I be
afraid? The thing called Death being no more than a Living Change did
it matter so much when or how the change was effected?
"Who is responsible,"--I said to myself--"for the sense of fear? Who is
it that so mistrusts the Divine order of the Universe as to doubt the
ultimate intention of goodness in things which appear evil? Is it not I
alone who am the instigator of my own dread?--and can this dark, dumb
Spectre do more to me than is ordained for my blessing in the end?"
With these thoughts I grew bold--my nervous trembling ceased. I now
chose deliberately to consider, and WILLED to determine, that this
mysterious Shadow, darker still as it grew, was something of a friend
in disguise. I lifted my head half defiantly, half hopefully in the
gloom, and the strange fact that the only light I saw came from the
weirdly gleaming edge of radiance round the Phantom itself did not
frighten me from the attitude I had resolved upon. The more I settled
myself into that attitude the firmer it became--and the stronger grew
my courage. I gently moved aside the table on which I had been writing,
and stood up. Once on my feet I felt still bolder and surer of myself,
and though the Shadow opposite to me looked darker and more threatening
than before, I began to move steadily towards it. I made an effort to
speak to it, and at last found my voice.
"Whatever you are," I said aloud, "you cannot exist at all without
God's will! God ordains nothing that is not for good, therefore you
cannot be here with any evil purpose! If I am afraid of you, my fear is
my own weakness. I will not look at you as a thing that can or would do
me harm, and therefore I am coming to you to find out your meaning! You
shall prove to me what you are made of, to the very depth and heart of
your darkness!--you shall unveil to me all that you hide behind your
terrifying aspect,--because I KNOW that whatever your intention towards
me may be, you cannot hurt my Soul!"
As I spoke I drew nearer and nearer--and the luminous edge round the
Phantom grew lighter and lighter, till--suddenly a flash of brilliant
colour like a rainbow glittered full on my eyes so sharply that I fell
back, half blinded by its splendour. Then--as I looked--I dropped to my
knees in speechless awe--for the Shadow had changed to a dazzling Shape
of winged radiance,--a figure and face so glorious that I could only
gaze and gaze, with all my soul entranced in wonder! I heard delicious
music around me, but I could not listen--all my soul was in my eyes.
The Vision grew in stature and in splendour, and I stretched out my
hands to it in prayerful appeal, conscious that I was in the shining
Presence of some inhabitant of higher and more heavenly spheres than
ours. The beautiful head, crowned with a diadem of flowers like white
stars, bent towards me--the luminous eyes smiled into mine, and a voice
sweeter than all sweet singing spoke to me in accents of thrilling
tenderness.
"Thou hast done well!" it said--"Even so always approach Darkness
without fear! Then shalt thou find the Light! Meet Sorrow with a
trusting heart--so shalt thou discover an angel in disguise! God thinks
no evil of thee--desires no wrong towards thee--has no punishment in
store for thee--give Thyself into His Hand, and be at peace!"
Slowly,--like the colours of the sunset melting away into the grey of
twilight, the Vision faded,--and when I recovered from the dazzled
bewilderment into which I had been thrown, I found myself again in
complete solitude and darkness--darkness unrelieved save by the dim
light of the setting moon. I was for a long time unable to think of
anything but the strange experience through which I had just
passed--and I wondered what would have happened if instead of boldly
advancing and confronting the dark Phantom which had so terrified me I
had striven to escape from it? I believed, and I think I was right in
my belief, that I should have found every door open, and every facility
offered for a cowardly retreat had I chosen to make it. And
then--everything would have been at an end!--I should have probably had
to leave the House of Aselzion--and perhaps I too should have been
marked with a black cross as a failure! Inwardly I rejoiced that so far
I had not given way, and presently yielding to a drowsiness that began
to steal over me, I undressed and went to bed, perfectly tranquil in
mind and happy.
I must have slept several hours when I was awakened suddenly by the
sound of voices conversing quite close to me--in fact, they seemed to
be on the other side of the wall against which my bed was placed. They
were men's voices, and one or two were curiously harsh and irritable in
tone. There was plenty of light in my room--for the night had passed,
and as far as I could tell it seemed to be early morning. The voices
went on, and I found myself compelled to listen.
"Aselzion is the cleverest humbug of his time,"--said one--"He is never
so happy as when he can play the little god and dupe his worshippers!"
A laugh followed this sentence.
"He's a marvel in his way,"--said another--"He must be a kind of
descendant of some ancient Egyptian conjurer who had the trick of
playing with fire. There is nothing in the line of so-called miracle he
cannot do,--and of course those who are ignorant of his methods, and
who are credulous themselves--"
"Like the woman here,"--interposed the first voice.
"Yes--like the woman here--little fool!"--and there was more
laughter--"Fancying herself in love with Rafel Santoris!"
I sat up in bed, straining my ears now for every word. My cheeks were
burning--my heart beating--I hardly knew what to think. There was a
silence for two or three minutes--minutes that seemed like ages in my
longing to hear more.
"Santoris always managed to amuse himself!"--said a thin, sharp voice
with a mocking ring in its tone--"There was always some woman or other
in love with him. Some woman he could take in easily, of course!"
"Not difficult to find!"--rejoined the first voice that had spoken,
"Most women are blind where their affections are concerned."
"Or their vanity!"
Another silence. I rose from my bed, shivering with a sense of sudden
cold, and threw on my dressing-gown. Going to the window, I looked out
on the fair expanse of the calm sea, silver-grey in the early dawn. How
still and peaceful it looked!--what a contrast to the storm of doubt
and terror that was beginning to rage within my own heart! Hush! The
voices began again.
"Well, it's all over now, and his theory of perpetuating life at
pleasure has come to an untimely end. Where did the yacht go down?"
"Off Armadale, in Skye."
For a moment I could not realise what had been said and tried to repeat
both question and answer--'Where did the yacht go down?' 'Off Armadale,
in Skye.'
What did it mean?--The yacht? Gone down? What yacht? They were talking
of Santoris--of Rafel, my beloved!--MY lover, lost through ages of time
and space, and found again only to be once more separated from me
through my own fault--my own fault!--that was the horror of it--a
horror I could not contemplate without an almost maddening anguish. I
ran to the wall through which I had heard the voices talking and
pressed my ear against it, murmuring to myself--"Oh no!--it is not
possible!--not possible! God would not be so cruel!" For many minutes I
heard nothing--and I was rapidly losing patience and self-control, when
at last I heard the conversation resumed,--"He should never have risked
his life in such a vessel"--said one of the voices in a somewhat
gentler tone--"It was a wonderfully clever contrivance, but the danger
of all that electricity was obvious. In a storm it would have no
chance."
"That has been thoroughly proved,"--answered another voice--"Just half
a gale of wind with a dash of thunder and lightning, and down it went,
with every soul on board."
"Santoris might have saved himself. He was a fine swimmer."
"Was he?"
Another silence. I thought my head would have burst with its aching
agony of suspense,--my eyes were burning like hot coals with a weight
of unshed tears. I felt that I could have battered down the wall
between me and those torturing voices in my feverish desire to know the
worst--the worst at all costs! If Rafel were dead--but no!--he could
not die! He could not actually perish--but he could be parted from me
as he had been parted before--and I--I should be alone again--alone as
I had been all my life! And in my foolish pride I had voluntarily
severed myself from him!--was this my punishment? More talking began,
and I listened, like a criminal listening to a cruel sentence.
"Aselzion will tell her, of course. Rather a difficult business!--as he
will have to admit that his teachings are not infallible. And on the
whole there was something very taking about Santoris--I'm sorry he's
gone. But he would only have fooled the woman had he lived."
"Oh! That, naturally! But that hardly matters. She would only have had
herself to blame for falling into the trap."
I drew myself away from the wall, trembling and sick with dread.
Mechanically I dressed myself, and stared out at the gold of the sun
which was now pouring its radiance full on the sea. The beauty of the
scene moved me not at all--nothing mattered. All that my consciousness
could take in was that, according to what I had heard, Rafel was
dead,--drowned in the sea over which his fairy vessel the 'Dream' had
sailed so lightly--and that all he had said of our knowledge of each
other in former lives, and of the love which had drawn us together, was
mere 'fooling'! I leaned out of the window, and my eyes rested on the
little crimson rose that still blossomed against the wall in fragrant
confidence. And then I spoke aloud, hardly conscious of my own words--
"It is wicked"--I said--"wicked of God to allow us to imagine beautiful
things that have no existence! It is cruel to ordain us to love, if
love must end in disappointment and treachery! It would be better to
teach us at once that life is intended to be hard and plain and without
tenderness or truth, than to lead our souls into a fool's paradise!"
Then--all at once--I remembered the dark Phantom of the night and its
transformation into the Vision of an Angel. I had struggled against the
terror of its first spectral appearance, and had conquered my
fears,--why was I now shaken from my self-control? What was the cause?
Voices, merely! Voices behind a wall that spoke of death and
falsehood,--voices belonging to persons I did not know and could not
see--like the voices of the world which delight in uttering scandals
and cruelties and which never praise so much as they condemn. Voices
merely! Ah!--but they spoke of the death of him whom I loved!--must I
not listen? They spoke of his treachery and 'fooling.' Should I not
hear?
And yet--who were those persons, if persons they were, who talked of
him with such easy callousness? I had met no one in the House of
Aselzion save Aselzion himself and his servant or secretary
Honorius,--who then could there be except those two to know the reasons
that had brought me hither? I began to question myself and to doubt the
accuracy of the terrible news I had inadvertently overheard. If any
evil had chanced to Rafel Santoris, would Aselzion have told me he was
'safe and well' when he had conjured up for my comfort the picture of
the 'Dream' yacht on the moonlit sea only a few hours ago? Yet with my
bravest effort I could not recover myself sufficiently to be quite at
peace,--and in my restless condition of mind I looked towards the
turret door opening to the stairway which led to the little garden
below and the seashore--but it was fast shut, and I remembered Aselzion
had locked it. But, to my complete surprise, another door stood
open,--a door that had seemed part of the wall--and a small room was
disclosed beyond it,--a kind of little shrine, hung with pale purple
silk, and looking as though it were intended to hold something
infinitely precious. I entered it hesitatingly, not sure whether I was
doing right or wrong, and yet impelled by something more than
curiosity. As I stepped across the threshold I heard the voices behind
the wall again--they sounded louder and more threatening, and I
paused,--half afraid, yet longing to know all that might yet be said,
though such knowledge might mean nothing but misery and despair to me.
"All women are fools!"--and this trite observation was made by someone
speaking in harsh and bitter accents--"It is not love that really moves
them so much as the self-satisfaction of BEING LOVED. No woman could be
faithful for long to a dead man--she would lack the expected response
to her superabundant sentimentality, and she would tire of waiting to
meet him in Paradise--if she believed in such a possibility, which in
nine cases out of ten she would not."
"With Aselzion there are no dead men"--said another of the unseen
speakers--"They have merely passed into another living state. And
according to his theories, lovers cannot be separated, even by what is
called death, for long."
"Poor comfort!" and with the words I heard a laugh of scornful
mockery--"The women who have loved Rafel Santoris would hardly thank
you for it!"
I shuddered a little, as with cold. 'The women who have loved Rafel
Santoris!' This phrase seemed to darken the very recollection of the
handsome face and form of the man I had, almost unconsciously to
myself, begun to idealise--something coarse and common suggested itself
in association with him, and my heart sank within me, deprived of hope.
Voices, merely!--yet how they tortured me! If I could only know the
truth, I thought!--if Aselzion would only come and tell me the worst at
once! In a kind of stupor of unnameable grief I stood in the little
purple-hung shrine so suddenly opened to me, and began to dreamily
consider the unkindness and harshness of those voices!--Ah! so like the
voices of the world! Voices that sneer and mock and condemn!--voices
that would rather utter a falsehood than any word that should help and
comfort--voices that take a cruel pleasure in saying just the one thing
that will wound and crush an aspiring spirit!--voices that cannot tune
themselves to speak of love without grudging bitterness and
scorn--voices--ah God!--if only all the harsh and calumniating voices
of humanity were stilled, what a heaven this earth would be!
And yet--why should we listen to them? What have they really to do with
us? Is the Soul to be moved from its centre by casual opinion? What is
it to me that this person or that person approves or disapproves my
actions? Why should I be disturbed by rumours, or frightened by ill
report?
Absorbed in these thoughts, I hardly realised the almost religious
peace of my surroundings,--and it was only when the voices ceased for a
few minutes that I saw what was contained in this small room I had half
unwittingly entered,--an exquisite little table, apparently made of
crystal which shone like a diamond--and on the table, an open book. A
chair was placed in position for the evident purpose of reading--and as
I approached, at first indifferently and then with awakening interest,
I saw that the open book showed an inscription on its fly-leaf--"To a
faithful student.--From Aselzion." Was _I_ 'a faithful student'? I
asked myself the question doubtingly. There was no 'faithfulness' in
fears and depressions! Here was I, shaken in part from self-control
from the mere hearing of voices behind a wall! I, who had said that
"God ordains nothing that is not for good"--was suddenly ready to
believe that He had ordained the death of the lover to whom His laws
had guided me! I, to whom had been vouchsafed the beatific vision of an
Angel--an Angel who had said--"God thinks no evil of thee--desires no
wrong towards thee--has no punishment in store for thee--give thyself
into His Hand, and be at peace!" was already flinching and turning away
from the Faith that should keep me strong! A sense of shame stole over
me--and almost timidly I approached the table on which the open book
lay, and sat down in the chair so invitingly placed. I had scarcely
done this when the voices began again, in rather louder and angrier
tones.
"She imagines she can learn the secret of life! A woman, too! The
brazen arrogance of such an attempt!"
"No, no! It is not the secret of life she wants to discover so much as
the secret of perpetual youth! That, to a woman, is everything! To be
always young and always fair! What feminine thing would not 'adventure
for such merchandise'!"
A loud laugh followed this observation.
"Santoris was well on his way to the goal"--said a voice that was suave
and calm of accent--"Certainly no one would have guessed his real age."
"He had all the ardour and passion of youth"--said another voice--"The
fire of love ran as warmly in his veins as though he were a Romeo! None
of the coldness and reluctance of age affected him where the fair sex
was concerned!"
More laughter followed. I sat rigidly in the chair by the crystal
table, listening to every word.
"The woman here is the latest victim of his hypnotic suggestions, isn't
she?"
"Yes. One may say his LAST victim--he will victimise no more."
"I suppose if Aselzion told her the truth she would go at once?"
"Of course! Why should she remain? It is only a dream of love that has
brought her here--when she knows the dream is over, there will be
nothing left."
True! Nothing left! The whole world a desert, and Heaven itself without
hope! I pressed my hands to my eyes to try and cool their burning
ache--was it possible that what these voices said could be true? They
had ceased speaking, and there was a blessed silence. As a kind of
desperate resource, I took out the letter Rafel Santoris had written to
me, and read its every word with an eager passion of
yearning--especially the one passage that ran thus--"We--you and I--who
know that Life, being ALL Life, CANNOT die,--ought to be wiser in our
present space of time than to doubt each other's infinite capability
for love and the perfect world of beauty which love creates."
'Wiser than to doubt'! Ah, I was not wise enough! I was full of doubts
and imagined evils--and why? Because of voices behind a wall! Surely a
foolish cause for sorrow! I tried to extricate my mind from the
darkness of despondency into which it had fallen, and to distract my
attention from my own unhappy thoughts I glanced at the book which lay
open before me. As I looked, its title, printed in letters of gold,
flashed on my eyes like a gleam of the sun--'The Secret of Life.' A
sudden keen expectancy stirred in me--I folded Rafel's letter and
slipped it back into its resting-place near my heart--then I drew my
chair close up to the table, and bending over the book began to read.
All was now perfectly still around me--the voices had ceased. Gradually
I became aware that what I was reading was intended for my instruction,
and that the book itself was a gift to me from Aselzion if I proved a
'faithful student.' A thrill of hope and gratitude began to relieve the
cold weight upon my heart,--and I suddenly resolved that I would not
listen to any more voices, even if they spoke again.
"Rafel Santoris is not dead!"--I said aloud and resolutely--"He could
not so sever himself from me now! He is not treacherous--he is true! He
is not 'fooling' me--he is relying upon me to believe in him. And I
WILL believe in him!--my love and faith shall not be shaken by mere
rumour! I will give him no cause to think me weak or cowardly,--I will
trust him to the end!"
And with these words spoken to the air, I went on reading quietly in a
stillness made suddenly fragrant with the scent of unseen flowers.