Her face grew thoughtful. "Then the power _is_ coming back," she said.
"I wonder why."
He seated himself beside her. "Of course," he said, "it was not really
yourself?"
"I have not left this couch for three hours," she said. "All the same,
I wanted to have a peep at you all."
"I hope you will not exercise that power too frequently," he said. "You
know I never liked it."
"I know," she said, smiling up at his grave face, "that you were always
afraid I should not come back from my flights, but I always do. _They_
send me--very much against my will--still, I must obey."
She sighed. Then after a moment she put out her hand with a caressing
little gesture. "What was your terrible dream?" she said. "I see it is
troubling you still. You are _distrait_ and absent. Tell me."
He touched the white hand with his lips.
"I would rather not," he said, "because you were concerned in it, and it
seemed as if you were trying to reveal something or show me something
that I dreaded to see. It was in fighting against seeing it that I
awoke."
She started from her reclining position and fixed her eyes on his face.
"Julian," she cried, in a sudden breathless way, "was it--was it?--No."
She broke off and wrung her hands helplessly. "It has escaped me again.
I _cannot_ remember. Oh, that I could! It tortures me so. Julian--"
and she looked at him appealingly. "_You_ must help me--you must bring
it back. I will not wed you till that mystery is solved. Something
warns me against it."
"My dearest," he said soothingly, "do not excite yourself in this
fashion. It can make no difference to me that there should be mystery
or tragedy in your past life. Have I not always loved you? Have we not
chosen the same path in life, only now we shall tread it side by side,
not one far in advance of the other? The infinite delight of that
companionship shall not be marred by any memories of the past. If I am
content to let it rest, surely you may be."
She drew herself away. Her deep strange eyes looked coldly and yet
mournfully back to his yearning gaze.
"You were never a coward, Julian," she said. "What is it you fear now?"
He threw himself on his knees by her side and buried his face in the
soft white furs. She saw that he was trembling greatly. "I cannot
tell," he said hoarsely. "Would to God that I could! But if you should
change, if you should repent--Oh! to lose your love now would kill me!"
She laid her hand on his bowed head. "Rest assured you shall not lose
_that_," she said in her low thrilling voice. "No, Julian, that is not
the danger--it threatens me, not you. There will be no change on my
part, not so far as my love is concerned. Will that assurance satisfy
you?"
"You need not ask that, beloved? But why disturb our peace? If I am
content--"
"There must be no secret between your soul and mine," she said solemnly.
"For what, think you, is your power granted, but that I may answer to
it, that I may lead you on the road--and that you, for me, may throw
open the portals?"
"In the future," he said eagerly, "I am content to do your will. But
not now--not to draw the veil from our buried miseries. Let them be as
dead things--out of sight and mind."
"You know," she said, "that nothing dies--not a life, or an act, or a
thought. You may put the past out of sight, but it lives still--lives
in its hidden crimes, its secret sins, its evil and its good--lives to
haunt and shape our future, let that future dream as it will of
forgetfulness."
He rose from his knees, his face was still pale, but his eyes glowed
like living fire.
"When will you wed me, Estarah?" he asked, abruptly.
The soft colour flushed her cheek. Her eyes drooped.
"My heart is yours," she said. "My life lives but in the shadow of your
own. Why should I withhold--this poor gift?"
She placed her hand in his, and let him draw her to his heart. "I will
wed you when you will," she said, "but only if you yield to my
condition. It is an easy one, Julian. Why do you fear?"
Ah--why? He could not answer that question to his own heart, much less
to hers. He could not paint the shuddering horror which had forced him
to veil his eyes and shrink aghast from that last scene in his Dream.
Yet when he looked down on her in her pure womanly beauty, and felt the
clinging tenderness of her arms, and knew that among all the world of
men who had worshipped and wooed her, he alone had kept his place and
awakened a response of tenderness, he felt his heart thrill and glow
with sudden strength and pride.
"It shall be as you wish," he said. "On the night that heralds our
bridal morn, I promise, if my power be still the same, that I will do
your bidding."
She lifted her face. It was radiant with a strange mysterious joy. "At
last," she said, brokenly--"at last I shall know. Every page of my life
will be clear. Heart to heart, soul to soul, so we shall stand, oh,
beloved! You and I, with senses purified, with no secret unshared, with
spirits unfettered and souls at rest, so shall we greet our bridal morn.
For this did I brave the ordeal, for this have I faced almost the
bitterness of death--but the trial is almost over--the goal is almost
reached. Go, now, my life's beloved, lest indeed my heart should break
beneath its weight of joy! Go; but fear not. I am yours for ever in
the life we know, and in the deep Unknown beyond I shall claim you
still!"