Part 20

"'Better,' she cried, 'had I died ten thousand times than live this awful life!'

"She began to picture all the happy hours that they had spent together; she thought of the love which the boy had always shown her. It was impossible that she should remain any longer in her room. Whatever the risk she ran, whatever pain it might bring, she must see her lover again and ask him to forgive her. Was it too late? Was his suffering over? She took up a short dagger, and moving softly, stole out of the house.

"There was a moon, but fortunately at the moment it was covered by clouds, and she passed into the open beyond the enclosure safely. In the gloom she could see the cross standing out against the hills beyond; and even as she looked the clouds passed by, and the moon shone brightly, showing clearly the boy's drooping head and strained arms. Was he dead? She hurried on until she came to the foot of the cross. The boy slightly moved at the sound of her footstep, and turning his head looked down at her.

"'Aureus!' she cried, 'Aureus! forgive me--forgive me!'

"The boy tried to speak, but for a moment he could not. Then with a great effort he whispered, 'Viola, I love you! I shall always love you!' And as he said the last word his head fell forward; his pain was over.

"But the girl, when she realized that he was dead, having kissed the poor wounded feet, knelt down before his lifeless body; then, baring her breast, she drove the dagger into her heart."

"Soon after this Marius left the country, being summoned with several of the Romans to Italy. But the story of these two being handed down, the villa was looked upon as haunted by their dead spirits, and avoided as a place accursed.

"Some time later, owing to the misfortune which attended a Saxon tribe that had settled in this part, orders were given that the 'House of the Great Curse,' as it was then called, should be domed over and covered with sand, so that the evil spirits might be confined within. In a few years the grass grew on the little hillock, and long before the Norman Conquest all history connected with the place had perished."

"And that," I said, "is the ending of the story. It is a very sad one."

"It is rather," he answered; "the first chapter of what may be called our intellectual history, is usually sad. The fight between the spirit and beast nature must naturally bring about much evil; the animal is in one sense far less repulsive than the savage, as the former lacks the ingenuity with which the latter is able to enforce his brutal desires. From that day to the present time my spirit and the spirit of this girl have been more or less interwoven together through many lives and under various names. Both our natures have developed; though owing in a large measure to the incident just related, her growth has been retarded; had it not been for this, our spirits would probably have been united long before this, and have passed to a higher and nobler life together. But we shall not now have long to wait," he continued; "and I shall at last be freed from these marks."

As he said this he held his hands palm upward for me to look at, and in the centre of each was a small faint red spot.

"Those marks," he said, "I have always borne. They are one of the strange signs of the power with which the spirit, under certain circumstances, affects the body, and their having endured for so long a time shows how deeply this experience affected in some way the formation of my character."

"Tell me," I said, "where Vera is now. Is she still alive?"

"Next time we meet," he answered, "if all be well, I will show you the girl as she is now--the girl whom you have heard of as Viola and Vera--the girl whom I love!"

"She can hardly be a girl now," I said.

"Wait," he replied, "and see."

*CHAPTER XVII*

As Sydney was away from home, some weeks passed before I again had an opportunity of seeing him. On hearing of his return I immediately walked to his house and found him sitting in the garden.

"I am glad that you have come," he said, "as this is the last day I shall spend here, and there is much still to tell before we part."

"Go!" I exclaimed; "you do not intend to leave altogether?"

"Yes," he replied; "and it will be many years before you will see me again, so we must make the best of the short time that still remains. You will stay the night?"

I assented. The news of his coming departure was a greater blow than I could have believed possible. Having lived for long alone, and become so self-concentrated, it had not occurred to me I could suffer such pain at parting from any one. When we are young we experience these acute sensations; but time makes us callous, and after all, our friendship had lasted so short a time.

"You are sorry," he said. "We have become friends--a rare thing to happen in later life--and we shall miss each other. But it is better so. Some day you will understand why we lose our idols. It is not good for man to be alone; but it is still worse for one nature to rest all its interest upon another. The ivy clinging to the oak destroys the life of its supporter, and sooner or later they fall together."

For some time we strolled up and down, talking of friendship. There was one thing noticeable in Sydney which distinguished him from most men. Superficial observers would have called him egotistical, because if he thought a thing true he said so, without consideration for any of the forms of false modesty which are mistaken for meekness. If he liked a person he spoke to him just as he felt; and when better acquainted with a subject than those with whom he was conversing, he said so openly. If he felt that he was stronger or wiser than his friend, he lacked the affectation of professing to disbelieve it. Yet, instead of feeling that this assumption was an impertinence, I liked him the better for it; it was so naturally done, so free from the very suspicion of conceit.

"You and I," he seemed to say, "understand each other. We both know enough to be conscious of our own littleness and our own ignorance. We will not place ourselves in the ridiculous position of students in precedence. The gap between the wisest man and the fool is too narrow for partition. It is hardly worth while for earthworms to wrangle over shades of complexion, or men over shades of intelligence. Let us rather get to business, and make the best of our opportunity for improvement."

But this manner of his was offensive to many. There are minds so small that they are incapable of understanding a meekness that takes no account of distinction in littleness.

After dinner, Sydney abruptly turned a conversation upon the growth of spiritual life, in which I was much interested, and told me a short story about one of the little children who had been rescued by Agnes, and taken to Somerville.

I had no idea at the time how important a link in his history lay hidden in this pathetic tale.

"I promised," he said, "that when next we met, you should see Vera as she is, and to-night you shall do so, but first of all I will give you an account of a scene that happened six years ago. You remember the home for orphan children that Vera and Agnes started. For a few years it continued under their joint care, but then, owing to a reason which I will explain later, the entire charge was thrown upon Agnes, and the home has been for the last seven years, and is now, under her sole management. Six years ago I went to see her, and told her of a case which seemed in every way worthy of relief. A young woman, who had been left a widow a few months previously, was dying. She had one child, a little girl about eighteen months old; this child would soon be totally unprovided for, as, though the mother had been well brought up, and was of gentle birth, her own and her husband's relations were dead. Anxiety on her baby's account was adding greatly to the poor woman's suffering. You may fancy that Agnes required no urging in such a case, and she went with me at once on this errand of mercy. We found the mother and her child in a small badly-furnished room in one of the poorest parts of Manchester. Since her husband's death she had done a little dressmaking, and so kept her child and herself from starvation. Notwithstanding the ravages of disease, she was still a beautiful woman; and as she told Agnes her story, the mystery of sorrow bravely borne, and apparently meaningless as far as this life was concerned, affected her listener deeply. Her parents had died when she was about seventeen; they had been fairly well off, having made a small fortune in Australia; her father, however, during the closing years of his life had speculated rashly, and when he died a few months after his wife, the estate had to be wound up in bankruptcy. His only daughter Ellen managed after some little difficulty to get a situation as nursery-governess to the children of a wealthy Australian, who was about to sail with his family for England. Ellen lived with these people for three years, and, from what she said, her life must have been far from happy. Those who have recently risen from an inferior social position are as a rule the most overbearing to any one whom they consider their subordinate; the value of wealth is so impressed upon them that they can hardly realize that the governess in their pay is their social equal, or may be, as in this case, their superior. The torment that such persons inflict on a young, and sensitive nature is indescribable. It is often bad enough to be ruled over by those we respect, but to be slighted, or still worse patronized, by those whose instincts and habits revolt us is torture. Such was this girl's life, until she met by accident her future husband; he was a young journalist, who through hard work and ability had made his way into a position which brought him in a precarious L300 a year. On the prospect of this doubtful income they married, and the first two years of their lives were passed happily. But soon after the birth of their child, Harry Stanford broke down in health. He had worked too hard. Then the bitter struggle began: piece by piece the furniture had to be sold to buy food, and when he died his wife found herself once more penniless, and debarred now from any chance of earning a living as she had formerly done, by reason of her new tie. Still, as long as her strength lasted she had struggled bravely against poverty and misfortune.

"'It is not,' she said, looking up at Agnes' face, 'that I fear to die. It would be so sweet to lie down and rest--to know that all trouble and pain were over, and that I could go to my husband! But he has left me this little one, the baby he loved so dearly and was so proud of. What will become of her when I go to him? What will he say--our child--our child! With no one to love or care for her--it is terrible!'

"And the poor woman broke into a paroxysm of weeping.

"'I cannot die,' she sobbed, 'I cannot! Oh God! I see her growing up without love--people are cruel to her, and day by day, as she gets older, she will miss more the care of a mother's watchfulness. If anything should happen--if she should sink down through despair into the depth of sin and misery! I cannot leave her!'

"'Do not distress yourself, dear,' Agnes said; 'I will try and take your place when you are gone--will try to be a mother to your little one. Give her to me--let me take her in my arms.' She took the little one from its mother, and the child came not unwillingly. 'There, you see,' she continued, 'the child trusts me--will you?'

"When the mother heard and understood, the drawn look of anxious pain passed from her face, and a radiant light of rest and peace took its place.

"'Do you mean it?' she cried. 'Will you indeed take charge of my love, my baby, when I am gone? Oh! you don't know, you cannot imagine what joy you have given me! Trust you! Yes, indeed, no one can look into your eyes and see you touch the child and not know that you can love; and you are sure to love her, the darling! But how can I thank you--it is too good to be true.'

"Though the child was getting near the age when children so often develop shyness, she nestled up and clung to Agnes as though she recognized her touch. The little thing looked up into the sweet face bending over her, and seemed to find there something familiar. It put its baby hands to her cheeks and stroked them, then crowed and laughed with pleasure.

"To those who knew the mystery which connected Agnes with this child there was something strangely pathetic in the unconscious recognition, the half-forgotten association. The strange part lay chiefly in this, that the child was more conscious than the woman. The child remembered--the woman only felt at her heart a throb of reawakened love. And the mother who watched saw not the mysterious chain which bound these two together, yet she saw what was enough for her, love in the one and contentment in the other, and she lay back and rested with a heart full of such deep peace as she had never hoped again to know. I saw her fold her hands, and knew that she was half praying, half speaking to her husband. Even as she prayed his presence was beside her, and I then felt certain that the end was near.

"'Agnes,' I said, 'give back the child to its mother, that for one moment the three may be united.'

"She looked at me in surprise, wondering what I could mean, then placed the little one in its mother's arms; and the child, conscious, as children often are, of the spirit world around them, felt the dual presence, and lifting up its tiny hands gave a little cry of joy. But the cry broke the delicate thread which till now had held the mother bound to earth, and her spirit was free. Then a strange thing happened, for as the two spirits were drawn together they became aware of the mystery which connected me with the child they had loved, and an indescribable joy entered their souls and passed to my own like some strain of joyful melody.

"The little child was taken by Agnes, after her mother's funeral, to Somerville. And now, if you wish to do so, we will go and see Vera."

We went together into the library, and there, sitting by the fire with a picture-book on her lap, was a little girl about seven. She sprang up as soon as she saw Sydney, and rushing up to him threw her arms around his neck. She was the most beautiful child I have ever seen; her skin had the delicate purity of perfect health; her features were more finely modelled than those which we generally see in children, but it was the deep loveliness of her large dark-blue eyes which gave the chief attraction. Her expression, and the firm outline of the lower part of her face, showed determination, faithfulness, and a deep capacity for love and devotion.

"Come, Vera," Sydney said, "I want to introduce you to a friend," and he led her to me.

She lifted up her face to be kissed, and I bent over her and touched her soft waving curls with my lips. What did it all mean? Could this be Vera's child, or some one named after her? There was a likeness to the face of the beautiful girl I had seen in my visions, but the child was not only far more lovely, her expression showed greater purity, refinement, and nobility. During the short time she sat with us I was particularly struck with her devotion to Sydney; she seemed ever trying to anticipate some want of his so as to fulfil it.

When at last he said, "You must go now, dear, and get to bed, as we shall have a long day's travelling to-morrow," she came and climbed on to his knee, and resting her head on his shoulder, said--

"Is it not lovely to think that we are going now to be together? It is good of you to take me; I hope I shall not be much trouble."

"I don't think so, dear," he answered; "you might perhaps have been a trouble once, but now it is different."

"Yes," she said, "I'm nearly grown up, am I not?"

He kissed her, and as she tripped off he said to me, laughing, "Well, what do you think of my nearly grown-up companion?"

"She is a sweet child," I said. "How did she come to be called Vera? And when are you going to introduce me to Lady Vancome?"

"So you don't even yet understand," he said, "the mystery? Listen while I explain. When Vera Vancome had lived with the children whom she had gathered round her for three years, her whole nature became changed. The new interest, the new love which grew up in her heart for the motherless little ones drove out of her nature the desire for self-gratification which heretofore had been her curse; yet habit is so strong, moulding as it does the brain and warping the will, that as long as the body lives, any tendency to an evil that has once been encouraged will continue, though perhaps with weakened force; and until the spirit is set free by death from these self-made bonds; love, which should be a spontaneous pleasure, is still at times marred by effort, and loses thereby much of its usefulness and beauty. When this is the case it becomes necessary for the soul's final perfection on earth that it should be born again into the body of a little child, which takes the form of the ennobled spirit. Thenceforth it is free from the tendency to evil which the influence of past years had engraved on its former body and mind. In other words, when a soul outgrows its body, it is time to cast off the old shell and take one more in conformity with a higher development. This may seem a strange thing to you, but it is a common experience of daily life, and accounts both for the inequality of human nature and also for the reason why we find but a small proportion of men or women seemingly fitted for a high state of spiritual life. We see many in the various transition stages, but few who have reached a final growth; the sixth form, as it were, of our earthly school, when the scholars are ready to go forth into a wider universe of action and experience.

"And thus it came about in Vera's case. Her body, weakened by continual work and the constant fight against her lower nature, was thereby made sensitive to the first attack of illness. A child, who had lately come to the home, developed diphtheria. The disease spread quickly among the other children; it was therefore necessary to isolate them, and Vera, much against Agnes' wish, determined to act as their nurse. While doing so she caught the disease. It was a pathetic sight to see her, even after she had taken the complaint, struggling to minister to the little ones around. She absolutely refused to be separated from them, notwithstanding the earnest entreaties of the nurse and the express orders of the doctor.

"One night while the nurse was sleeping, a little child who was very ill, began crying in its delirium and calling Vera by name; until nearly unconscious herself, she got up, and tottering over to the child, began stroking its head, and trying to calm its fears. The little one soon ceased its rambling and fell into a quiet sleep, but Vera still knelt by its side; she had lost consciousness of all around her.

"The nurse was roused some hours later by the crying of one of the children, and to her horror she found Lady Vancome still kneeling by the side of one of the cots. She touched her, but she did not move. The time had come--her new body awaited her.

"At the same hour a child was born. Into the more perfect body, free now from the evil tendency of a misspent past, her spirit entered."

"And the child?" I said.

"Is the baby Agnes rescued; is the little girl you have just seen. This is the divine order of life. Moved into the home which Vera founded, under the protection of Agnes whom she loved, she learned the first lesson of her new life. Thus, often do our deeds of mercy return to us again. We cast our bread upon the waters, and find it after many days. And thus, alas! do we also curse ourselves by acts of selfishness, reaping in future years the harvest of pain which we so thoughtlessly scattered in the past."

"Does Vera remember any of her previous life?" I asked.

"Not as you call remembrance," he answered, "though shadows flit across her mind at times."

"You have not told her about it, then?"

"No, it would not be wise; she is going with me now to Aphar, where she will become in time one of the priestesses. As soon as her spirit can leave the body, she will begin to learn the mystery of the past, and it will not be very many years, I expect, before we shall both leave this earth and go into the higher world which lies beyond and around us."

"Shall you never return here?" I asked.

"When the time comes for us to leave we will come to you before we go, but not till then."

"What will become of your house while you are away?"

"Before to-morrow night you will know."

The next morning I said good-bye to Sydney and Vera. As they drove away in the bright sunlight the child looked the personification of joy, but when my friend turned round to wave a last adieu, I knew that he was sorry: sorry because with the sensitiveness of his nature he knew my pain, and felt that I should be very lonely when he had gone.

That evening while sitting in my study I noticed a brilliant light as though some large building was on fire. I hastened out; there could be no mistake, this light proceeded from the direction of Sydney's house: before I arrived on the scene, there was a slight explosion, and flames were suddenly tossed high into the air. When I reached the building it was a ruin; only a few walls now stood to mark the spot where so many treasures had been gathered together.

*CONCLUSION*

For ten years I neither saw nor heard anything of Sydney or Vera, but this did not surprise me. I knew that they were both at Aphar, and that the girl was learning the mysteries of spiritual power which should in time enable her to gain at least some of the knowledge which the man, who had loved and watched over her so long, possessed. I was also confident that some day I should see them again before their spirits were united and passed away from earth.

My confidence was justified.

I was sitting alone one evening when Sydney entered the room. He was much changed. His hair was quite white, his face more calm, more noble than when we parted; but his expression told of such perfect happiness and contentment that even to look at him brought a feeling of peace.

"I have come at last, you see," he said, as he shook me warmly by the hand.

I told him how delighted I was, and that I had looked forward for years to this meeting. "But where," I continued, "is Vera? Did you not bring her after all?"

"Oh yes," he replied.

Even as he spoke the door opened, and the girl stood before us. I had been prepared for a good deal; I remembered the child, and felt quite certain that as she grew up she would be very beautiful; but I had never conceived it possible that any human form could be so lovely as the one that now stood before me.