X.

Harold opened his eyes. The night had gone; the sun was struggling

through the heavy curtains; the lamps and the fire had gone out, and

the room was cold. He was faint and exhausted. His forehead was damp

with horror, and his hands were shaking. That terrible struggle in

which intellect and its attainments had been wrenched apart, in which

the spirit and its memories had been torn asunder! He closed his eyes

for a moment in obedience to his exhausted vitality. Then he rose

slowly to his feet, went into his bedroom, and looked into the glass.

Was it Harold Dartmouth or the dead poet who was reflected there? He

went back, picked up the locket, and returned to the glass. He looked

at the picture, then at his own face, and again at the picture. They

were identical; there was not a line or curve or tint of difference.

He returned to his chair and rested his head on his hand. Was he this

man re-born? Did the dead come back and live again? Was it a dream, or

had he actually lived over a chapter from a past existence? He was a

practical man-of-the-world, not a vague dreamer--but all nature was

a mystery; this would be no stranger than the general mystery of life

itself. And he was not only this man reproduced in every line

and feature; he had his nature as well. His grandmother had never

mentioned her husband's name, but the Dartmouths had been less

reticent. They were fond of reiterating anecdotes of Lionel

Dartmouth's lawless youth, of his moody, melancholy temperament, and

above all, of the infallible signs he had shown of great genius. That

his genius had borne no fruit made no difference in their estimate; he

had died too soon, that was all--died of fever in Constantinople, the

story ran; there had never been a suggestion of scandal. And he had

come back to earth to fulfill the promise of long ago, and to give to

the world the one splendid achievement of that time. It had triumphed

over death and crime and revenge--but--He recalled those nights

of conflict in his mind. Would will and spirit ever conquer that

mechanical defect in his brain which denied his genius speech?

He drew his hand across his forehead; he was so tired. He pushed the

manuscript and letters into a drawer of the desk, and turning the

key upon them, opened the window and stepped out into the air.

His vitality was at as low an ebb as if from physical overwork and

fasting. He made no attempt to think, or to comment on the events

just past. For the moment they lost their interest, and he strolled

aimlessly about the park, his exhausted forces slowly recuperating.

At the end of an hour he returned to the house and took a cold

shower-bath and ate his breakfast. Then he felt more like himself. He

had a strong desire to return to his study and the lost manuscript,

but, with the wilful and pleasing procrastination of one who knows

that satisfaction is within his grasp, he put the temptation aside

for the present, and spent the day riding over his estates with his

steward. He also gave his business affairs a minute attention which

delighted his servant. After dinner he smoked a cigar, then went into

his study and locked the door. He sat down before the desk, and for

a moment experienced a feeling of dread. He wanted no more visions:

would contact with those papers induce another? He would like to read

that poem with the calm criticism of a trained and cultivated mind; he

had no desire to be whirled back into his study at Constantinople, his

brain throbbing and bursting with what was coming next. He shrugged

his shoulders. It was a humiliating confession, but there were forces

over which he had no control; there was nothing to do but resign

himself to the inevitable.

He opened the drawer and took out the manuscript. To his unspeakable

satisfaction he remained calm and unperturbed. He felt merely a

cold-blooded content that he had balked his enemies and that his

ambition was to be gratified. Once, before he opened the paper, he

smiled at his readiness to accept the theory of reincarnation. It had

taken complete possession of him, and he felt not the slightest desire

to combat it. Did a doubt cross his mind, he had but to recall the

park seen by his spiritual eyes, as he descended upon it to be born

again. It was the park in which he, Harold Dartmouth, had played as

a child during his annual visits to his parents; the park surrounding

the castle in which he had been born, and which had belonged to his

father's line for centuries. For the first time in his life he did

not reason. It seemed to him that there was no corner or loophole

for argument, nothing but a cold array of facts which must be

unconditionally accepted or rejected.

He spread out the poem. It was in blank verse, and very long. He was

struck at once with its beauty and power. Although his soul responded

to the words as to the tone of a dear but long unheard voice, still he

was spared the mental exaltation which would have clouded his judgment

and destroyed his pleasure. He leaned his elbows on the desk, and,

taking his head between his hands, read on and on, scarcely drawing

breath. Poets past and present had been his familiar friends, but in

them he had found no such beauty as this. The grand sweep of the poem,

the depth of its philosophy, the sublimity of its thought, the melody

of its verse, the color, the radiant richness of its imagery,

the sonorous swell of its lines, the classic purity of its

style--Dartmouth felt as if an organ were pealing within his soul,

lifting the song on its notes to the celestial choir which had sent it

forth. Heavenly fingers were sweeping the keys, heavenly voices were

quiring the melody they had with wanton hand flung into a mortal's

brain. As Harold read on he felt that his spirit had dissolved and was

flowing through the poem, to be blended, unified with it forever.

He seemed to lose all physical sensation, not from the causes of

the previous night, but from the spiritual exaltation and absorption

induced by the beauty and grandeur of the theme. When he had finished,

he flung out his arms upon the desk, buried his head in them, and

burst into tears. The tears were the result, not so much of extreme

nervous tension, as of the wonder and awe and ecstacy with which his

own genius had filled him. In a few moments his emotion had subsided

and was succeeded by a state less purely spiritual. He stood up, and

leaning one hand on the desk, looked down at the poem, his soul filled

with an exultant sense of power. Power was what he had gloried in all

his life. His birth had given it to him socially, his money had lent

its aid, and his personal fascination had completed the chapter. But

he had wanted something more than the commonplace power which fate

or fortune grants to many. He had wanted that power which lifts a man

high above his fellow-men, condemning him to solitude, perhaps, but,

in that fiercely beating light, revealing him to all men's gaze. If

life had drifted by him, it had been because he was too much of a

philosopher to attempt the impossible, too clever to publish his

incompetence to the world.

His inactivity had not been the result of lack of ambition, and yet,

as he stood there gazing down upon his work, it seemed to him that he

had never felt the stirrings of that passion before. With the power to

gratify his ambition, ambition sprang from glowing coals into a mighty

flame which roared and swept about him, darted into every corner

and crevice of his being, pulsated through his mind and spirit, and

temporarily drove out every other instinct and desire. He threw back

his head, his eyes flashing and his lips quivering. For the moment

he looked inspired, as he registered a vow to have his name known in

every corner of the civilized world. That he had so far been unable

to accomplish anything in his present embodiment gave him no

uneasiness at the moment. Sooner or later the imprisoned song would

force its way through the solid masonry in which it was walled up--He

gave a short laugh and came down to earth; his fancy was running away

with him.

He folded the poem compactly and put it in his breast pocket,

determined that it should never leave him again until a copy was in

the hands of the printer. It should be sent forth from Constantinople.

The poem must be the apparent offspring of his present incarnation;

and as he had never been in Constantinople he must go there and remain

for several months before publication.

He went into the library and sat down before the fire. He closed

his eyes and let his head fall back on the soft cushion, a pleasant

languor and warmth stealing through his frame. What a future! Power,

honor, adoration--the proudest pedestal a man can stand upon. And, as

if this were not enough, an unquestioned happiness with the woman he

loved with his whole heart. To her advent into his life he owed his

complete and final severance from the petty but infinite distractions

and temptations of the world. His present without flaw, and his future

assured, what was to prevent his gifts from flowering thickly

and unceasingly in their peaceful soil and atmosphere of calm? He

remembered that his first irresistible impulse to write had come

on the night he had met her. Would he owe to her his final power to

speak, as he had owed to that other--

He sat suddenly erect, then leaned forward, gazing at the fire with

eyes from which all languor had vanished. He felt as if a flash of

lightning had been projected into his brain. That other? Who was that

other?--why was she so marvellously like Weir? Her grandmother? Yes,

but why had he felt for Weir that sense of recognition and spiritual

kinship the moment he had seen her?

He sprang to his feet and strode to the middle of the room. Great

God! Was Weir reëmbodied as well as himself? Lady Sionèd Penrhyn was

indisputably the woman he had loved in his former existence--that was

proved once for all by the scene in the gallery at Rhyd-Alwyn and

by the letters he had found addressed to her. He recalled Weir's

childhood experience. Had she really died, and the desperate,

determined spirit of Sionèd Penrhyn taken possession of her body?

Otherwise, why that sense of affinity, and her strange empire over him

the night of their mutual vision? There was something more than racial

resemblance in form and feature between Sionèd and Weir Penrhyn; there

was absolute identity of soul and mind.

He strode rapidly from one end of the room to the other. Every

nerve in his body seemed vibrating, but his mind acted rapidly and

sequentially. He put the links together one by one, until, from the

moment of his last meeting with Sionèd Penrhyn at Constantinople to

the climax of his vision in his study, the chain was complete. Love,

then, as well as genius, had triumphed over the vengeance of Dafyd

Penrhyn and Catherine Dartmouth. In that moment he felt no affection

for his grandmother. She had worshipped and spoilt him, and had shown

him only her better side; but the weakness and evil of her nature had

done him incalculable injury, and he was not prepared to forgive her

at once.

He returned to his seat. Truly they all were the victims of inexorable

law, but the law was just, and if it took to-day it gave to-morrow. If

he and Sionèd Penrhyn had been destined to short-lived happiness and

tragic death in that other existence, there was not an obstacle or

barrier between them in the present. And if--He pushed his chair

suddenly back and brought his brows together. A thought had struck him

which he did not like. He got up and put another log on the fire. Then

he went over to the table and took up a book--a volume of Figuier. He

sat down and read a few pages, then threw down the book, and drawing

writing materials toward him, wrote a half-dozen business letters.

When they were finished, together with a few lines to Weir, and no

other correspondence suggested itself, he got up and walked the length

of the room several times. Suddenly he brought his fist violently down

on the table.

"I am a fool," he exclaimed. "The idea of a man with my experience

with women--" And then his voice died away and his hand relaxed, an

expression of disgust crossing his face. He sank into a chair by the

table and leaned his head on his hand. It was true that he was a

man of the world, and that for conventional morality he had felt the

contempt it deserved. Nevertheless, in loving this girl the finest and

highest instincts of his nature had been aroused. He had felt for her

even more of sentiment than of passion. When a man loves a girl whose

mental purity is as absolute as her physical, there is, intermingled

with his love, a leavening quality of reverence, and the result is

a certain purification of his own nature. That Dartmouth had

found himself capable of such a love had been a source of keenest

gratification to him. He had been lifted to a spiritual level which he

had never touched before, and there he had determined to remain.

And to have this pure and exquisite love smirched with the memory of

sin and vulgar crime! To take into his arms as his wife the woman on

whose soul was written the record of temptation and of sin! It was

like marrying one's mistress: as a matter of fact, what else was it?

But Weir Penrhyn! To connect sin with her was monstrous. And yet, the

vital spark called life--or soul, or intelligence, or personal force;

whatever name science or ignorance might give it--was unchanged in

its elements, as his own chapter of memories had taught him. Every

instinct in Sionèd's nature was unaltered. If these instincts were

undeveloped in her present existence, it was because of Weir's

sheltered life, and because she had met him this time before it was

too late.

He sprang to his feet, almost overturning the chair. "I can think no

more to-night," he exclaimed. "My head feels as if it would burst."

He went into his bedroom and poured out a dose of laudanum. When he

was in bed he drank it, and he did not awake until late the next day.