Part 9

"In her hypnotic condition she was able to answer my questions, and I felt satisfied that when she recovered, she would be able clearly to recall the past.

"Once more I laid my hand over her eyes, and bade her sleep, it being easier and safer to recall the patient to a natural condition, from a state of placid, rather than active, mesmerism. But on trying to rouse her, I was again destined to failure. It was impossible to bring her back to consciousness, or even to influence her now in any way. She lay in one of those cataleptic trances, which no power then known could break, and which form the chief danger connected with all such experiments. Even now, though I should have little difficulty in dealing with a case of this kind, I should be loath, except in emergency, or where the life of the body was endangered, to recall the spirit which is for the time free from its bodily trammels. But in those days I was unable to do so.

"At length alarmed, I took her in my arms and carried her to the little fishing village, where with some difficulty I managed to find a vehicle to drive back to Heather Lodge. It is not necessary for me to go into the details of the two anxious days which followed. During this time all the efforts, not only of the local doctor, but of two consulting physicians, had no effect in rousing Vera from her unnatural sleep. On the third day, however, she awoke, and seemed little the worse for her experience.

"Mr. Soudin had, in the meantime, returned in a state of the greatest despondency, and as soon as the news of his daughter's recovery had relieved my mind of an anxiety, which had made it impossible for me to think of other matters, I had a long talk with him.

"His pride and reserve were broken, and I was relieved to find that he intended to make a full confession of his present monetary difficulties. In Liverpool his worst fears were realized. Not only had he seen Vera's signature, but the registrar had told him that as far as it was possible to judge, his daughter acted without the slightest constraint, and had seemed perfectly reasonable and collected. 'She had given her age as twenty-one, on oath, and had answered all his questions rationally. A solicitor, when consulted, had given Mr. Soudin little hope of the marriage being annulled, and had warned him that while the action would probably lead to no good, it might possibly end in his daughter and son-in-law being arrested for perjury. If, however, he continued, she possessed means of her own, it might be wise to make an application to have this money settled upon her.

"'Money!' cried Mr. Soudin, after repeating the lawyer's words, 'it is little use troubling about that. Not only has she not a penny, but I may as well tell you at once she never will have. I am ruined!' and saying this he broke down, burying his face in his hands.

"'I knew this,' I replied, 'some time ago. You might as well have shown sufficient confidence in me to mention it before; knowing that I should, for your child's sake, have been only too glad to help you. But I suppose it seemed safer to let the marriage take place first.'

"'It's all very well,' he gasped, still shaken with the sobs which he could not suppress, 'for you to talk in that way now that the marriage is impossible, and you are free to leave us all in our misery! Generosity, I have found, is only to be trusted when the personal interest of the giver is securely tied up with that of the recipient.'

"I felt inclined to retort that he, in common with most men, judged others from the standpoint which he had adopted for personal usage, but the abject misery of the man, and the fact that he was the father of Vera, restrained me, and I said--

"'It is useless to talk of the past, which is irrevocable. The question to decide is what can be done in the future.'

"'The workhouse is open,' he muttered, 'and I can hardly see how the matter can interest you. Vancome is a beggar--we are all beggars. A curse has come upon us since you first entered the house, and I sometimes think that you brought it. You seem to possess some damnable power which I neither understand nor wish any longer to experience. It will be a relief to know that you have left the house.'

"'I feel sure you will later on regret such an accusation,' I answered, 'considering that you bought your bank shares before you ever saw me, and that the bank has been insolvent for years. Moreover, as you know, I did all in my power to prevent your daughter from marrying Lord Vancome. I have, however, a proposition to make. It seems quite clear that I cannot marry Vera, but there is no reason why I should not be able to help her. She is now Lady Vancome, and though her husband is penniless, the property which he once owned is in my hands, and will before long be legally transferred to me. I have thought the matter carefully over, and decided on certain conditions to settle these estates upon your daughter for life. The income which she will derive from them will be sufficient not only to enable her to keep up Vancome's late home, but also to live there very comfortably.'

"My companion was staring at me in blank amazement, and at last he said--'But to be candid, what are you to gain by this sacrifice? You can hardly expect me to believe that you intend to hand over property worth L100,000 for the benefit of a man you hate.'

"I did not reply for a moment; it was not the man's words but his thoughts which made me mad with rage; for I saw that he had not only placed the worst motive on my action, but that in his extremity he was prepared to accept my offer even at the price of his daughter's honour.

"Seeing that I was silent, he continued--'Of course you will have to pay Vancome an allowance for keeping out of the way.' Then a bright idea seemed to strike him, and he continued--'Why not pay him a good round sum to run off with some one else, and let us get a divorce? It is only a matter of price, and desertion is as good a plea as cruelty.'

"'This may be your idea of what is best,' I said, 'but somehow it does not appeal to me, nor would it fit in with my plans. I am going to consult my lawyer; and if it should be necessary, so as to make it easy for your daughter to protect herself, as well as the property, from her husband, I may have to make Vancome an allowance. But should Vera desire it, I shall place no obstacle in the way of his returning to his old home; my only wish is to leave her independent. As soon as these arrangements are made, I shall go abroad, and it is hardly probable you will see me again for some years.'

"Having said this, and feeling it would be impossible to restrain my temper any longer, I left the room. Had I remained with Mr. Soudin I should most likely have read some of the plans which he doubtless then was formulating, and so have been able to guard Vera more wisely, and prevent much of the evil which followed.

"I felt utterly depressed and puzzled. Little as I had cared for or believed in this man, the coarse selfishness of his nature, the want of even natural affection nauseated me. Life itself, mankind, the Creator of all things, seem degraded by the very existence of such a being. As the unselfish love of a father for his child is the chosen illustration of Godhead, so one in whom there is no sign of this love stands on the outer edge of darkness; doubly damned by the chaos into which he has wandered, and the reckless disregard of that one pure ray which might have been his salvation.

"The next day, before leaving for London, I had a long talk with Vera. She was now able to remember all that had passed during her absence from home, and was evidently very nervous, wondering how I should receive her after what had happened.

"'Mr. Sydney,' she began, 'I suppose you hate me, and perhaps your hatred is deserved. I can only say that I am very sorry for acting towards you in this way, and wish you good-bye.'

"'I am not angry with you, Vera,' I replied. 'We all must live to a certain extent as our natures lead us. Tell me, do you love your husband?'

"'I am not sure,' she answered; 'I suppose so, or I should not have consented to run away with him; but you see it seems long ago, and as I knew him for so short a time, it is difficult to be certain. It was wrong of you to make me forget all about the marriage, but you thought you were doing it for the best. How could you fancy that I should have gone with him if we had not been married first?'

"'I thought he might have deceived you in some way,' I said. 'But I acknowledge that my act was wrong, and ask your forgiveness. I have done all that is possible to make amends, but your father will explain about these details; and remember I shall always be ready to help you in any way. You will not forget, will you, that whatever happens I am your friend, and if you send for me I will come at once?'

"I was placing all the restraint I could on my manner, but I felt sick and giddy with the strain. At no time before had I loved this girl as now, when I had to leave her. She seemed to be conscious of this, but did not take the right way to help me, for coming nearer, and laying her hand on my arm, she said--

"'Alan, must you go? I want you to be near me. When you are by, I feel stronger and better, and oh! at times I am so lonely; the world seems so cold, so big, so evil, and I can trust you. Do stop, any way, till my husband comes back; that is the least you might do, considering that it was through your action we were parted.'

"'I dare not!' I answered. 'If it is pain to part now, how much worse it would be for me then! Can you not see also that it would be taking an unfair advantage of your husband? What I did at first, was done ignorantly, and it was necessary after that to undo as much of the evil as possible, but now I ought to go.'

"'Oh! I don't know what I shall do!' she cried, and the tears began to come into her eyes.

"I might have been excused for thinking that at last she loved me; but I was not mistaken, I knew her nature too well. Such a girl might weep upon her lover's neck, feeling for the moment as though her heart were breaking; and the next week under other influence throw him over for some one near at hand, with the most formal apology, and feeling hardly a sensation of pain. I felt sure that as soon as I had left, she would forget, but the knowledge did not bring, as perhaps it should have done, relief; rather it added to my pain. What hold could any one have upon such an undeveloped character? In all such cases we can only wait till the spirit is born. A flower is beautiful, we see it opening its delicate coloured petals in the sunlight; the fairy butterfly is hovering near, bearing the germ of fruition, but it passes by, and we must wait. As some blossoms, once as beautiful as their more fortunate neighbours, fall to the ground, having apparently missed, though we know not why, the purpose of their existence here, so some men and women live and die, having missed the object of their lives. The angel of love touches them not; he hovers near, they feel the breath from his wings, but the birth of the spirit is reserved for a future seed-time, and the harvest is a failure.

"I left Scotland, and after making the money arrangements referred to, threw my whole heart and mind into my work, trying to drown other thoughts by the interest which each added power brought. Up to this time, as you will have seen, my gift was a mixed blessing, half-developed, and therefore more likely to lead to evil than to good; but now I began to make progress, to feel my feet a little; every week brought new and startling discoveries, power which I had hardly dared to hope for; wisdom that humbled me to the dust. But as the story of my year's work abroad, and the events that happened to Vera during the same period in England will take me some time to relate, I shall leave them till your next visit. I have already tired you enough, we had better now rest a few hours, and if you like I will send you to sleep by telling a short fairy story. It has been a habit of mine since boyhood to mentally talk myself into dream-land, and without doubt you will find my tale have an equally soothing effect upon your own mind."

So I lay back, courting sleep, whilst Sydney told me this fairy story.

"In a world like, yet unlike, our own, might once have been found men fashioned as are the people of earth, save that they dwelt in profound silence; they heard neither the sweet singing of birds, nor the roar of their mighty torrents, nor the sweet murmuring of the streams. Communication of thought was carried from one to the other by the movement of the lips, by the sense of touch, or by writing; for though their world was full of sound, they as yet had not the gift of hearing. The time had not come when they should listen to the voices of the other spirits who wandered unseen in their midst, for the songs of the fairy folk contained much of the wisdom which it was better for the deaf and dumb to discover for themselves through the lessons of life. Yet at times, as the years rolled by, from every part of their world came messages of growing superstitions, of a professed consciousness of something which their written language failed clearly to convey, and of impressions which had been experienced, but which were outside the region of science. The wise men were greatly indignant at the growth of this seeming folly; they challenged the dreamers to appear before them, and prove the truth of their statements. Then one came forward, an old man, and he made signs to those around; and this was the interpretation--

"'Behold! as I stood among the hills, the heavens grew black around me, and great drops of rain fell on either side; out of these dark clouds there passed downwards to the earth a great fork-shaped flame which fell on a lofty tree; as it touched the great branches they split asunder, falling to the ground and leaving behind only a broken and shattered trunk.'

"And the wise men answered, 'Though such things happen but seldom, and in but few parts of the world, there is nothing new in what you have told us.'

"But the man continued, 'It is not of that I came to speak; wonderful as it seemeth to me, even though it may have happened in such manner before, and though you may have given the mystery a name. But when this flash had passed, I felt, yet I did not feel, something strike me; it was as though I had received some mighty blow, yet nothing touched me, and my head throbbed with pain, and my thoughts became confused.'

"But the wise men laughing, replied, 'It seemeth to us that the confusion of thought hath still continued.'

"Then the old man brought forth a piece of flat metal, and a great iron rod which he used for some work; and he began once more to address his audience.

"'Yet,' he said, 'I have felt this sensation before, but not so strongly, even when I have struck these two, one against the other,' and he thereupon hit the metal plate a great blow. 'It is there!' he cried; 'once more I felt it pass through my brain.'

"Some of those present seemed also to feel a like sensation, and one rose up, addressing the assembly thus--

"'For many years reports of strange sensations have come to us from all countries and people; moreover, these reports all bear a great resemblance to each other. Is it not well that we should investigate the matter more fully than we have done hitherto?'

"But the greater number of those present was opposed to him, answering, that already these so-called impressions had been tested from time to time by scientific research, and that it had been proved beyond question that they were all founded on delusion, as they could not by any possibility have reached the brain through the sense of touch or sight or smell; and that, therefore, necessarily they did not reach it at all.

"So the man returned to his own place; but some of the common people, who read the report and had known similar impressions, were strengthened in a belief, which was gaining ground year by year, namely, that the wise men might perhaps not know everything, and that the learned of the future might even laugh at the learned of to-day, as the latter now mocked their predecessors.

"So the years went by, and the reports of wonders became more numerous and more confusing. Some said that they had language conveyed to them, which as yet they could hardly understand, and that this happened even when their eyes were closed and no person was near to them. A few even believed that they could partially understand this language, and these were placed under restraint as madmen.

"During all this turmoil, a child was born, which grew up fair and beautiful to look upon. None taught him, yet he became exceeding wise, though his knowledge was not the knowledge of the savants. He was born with the power of hearing developed, and soon learned the fairy language; and the bright spirits taught him more wisdom than was to be found in all the books of his world. But when he tried to convey to those around the glory of sound, the sweetness of the fairies' songs, the whispering melody of the leaves when the wind played with them, or the ceaseless music of the waves, he found that there were no words in the language capable of expressing his meaning, and had to try by parables to give even a faint idea of the inexpressible.

"Moreover, most of his companions mocked him, but a few listened, even those who had some foretaste of his gift, and these believed that he was a god.

"As his fame spread abroad, men came from the ends of the earth to learn, if possible, the language that needed no signs, that passed mysteriously and invisibly from brain to brain. He found it possible to awaken in a few of these the dormant sense which all possessed, and such were able to work miracles among their fellows.

"And the savants stormed, and then when they found it impossible any longer to ignore the new power, they themselves began to give names to the mysteries; and having done this they were consoled, considering that they had thereby exorcised the supernatural.

"But the waves beat no longer unheard upon the beach; and the birds are loved by many for their voices as well as for their plumage. The mother hears her child's cry, and the lover the footstep of the beloved.

"Some, however, are still deaf, and others have not yet learned the language which is breathed so sweetly in the music of the fairies' songs."

*PART II*

*CHAPTER VII*

It was some weeks before Alan Sydney again returned to the story of his life. We often met, however, during this interval, both at his house and at mine. He seemed anxious to let me become better acquainted with his views and strange philosophy before describing any more of his experiences. So interesting did I find these discussions that, though still wishing to hear the conclusion of the tale, I did not press him to continue it. One evening, however, our conversation led back to the subject. We had been for some time discussing Buddhism; I had pointed out that many of the conclusions at which he had arrived resembled in certain ways the views professed by Eastern adepts.

"Truth is to be found in every faith," he replied, "and these occult philosophers have cultivated one side of knowledge which has been overlooked by European scientists. At the same time any one who has taken the trouble personally to examine the foundation on which the reports of marvellous powers possessed by certain Orientals are based will, I feel sure, have arrived at the following conclusions--

"Firstly, the metaphysical knowledge of these men is far in advance of their physical power to make use of it. In other words, they know many secret laws of nature, but usually fail in manipulating these laws to any useful purpose, often to any purpose at all. The reason for this is obvious. They have cultivated one part only of the sixth sense, and have done even this at the expense both of body and mind; instead of perfecting every faculty and keeping their personality evenly balanced, they have become deformed. It is as if a man hitherto deaf and suddenly conscious of the sense of hearing, should shut himself tip in a dark room and refuse to receive any impressions save those conveyed by sound; he would probably make considerable progress in hearing, but he would necessarily suffer deterioration in his other faculties.

"The knowledge and foretaste of power, which, through bodily and mental weakness, they can seldom exercise, have led many of the more unscrupulous seers to resort to trickery. Now and again they are able to perform what men call a miracle, and probably every wonder that we read of has at one time or another been performed, more or less accidentally, by some Eastern ascetic, but knowing the powers that do exist, and being unable to control them at will, they too frequently, either for profit or fame, turn for assistance to the most barefaced impostures.

"The spiritualists are not free from the same reproach. It is safe to assume that as any one who possesses even a slight knowledge of how to make use of the powers of a spiritual sense, will neither require money nor desire fame, all spiritualistic or theosophic exhibitions, which have either of these ends in view, should be regarded with distrust. At the same time they should be interesting as exhibiting a craving on the part of the performer and also of his audience for manifestations of unrevealed yet partially conceived truths.

"Trickery is only powerful when it apes reality. The love of the mysterious is after all a craving for felt possibilities. A conjurer, scoffing at the supernatural which he strives to imitate, would lose his occupation if he possessed sufficient eloquence to convince his audience that there was no truth foreshadowed by means of his dexterity. As the girl-child loves to play with her doll because the maternal instinct lies undeveloped in her breast, so do men love to play with magic, foretasting therein a part of the power which some day shall be perfected. They both know better, but for the moment prefer a true illuminating fancy to a false disillusionizing fact. Yet when some motive of self-interest provokes the deception, only harm can come; the parable is then turned into the lie, the prophet into the charlatan.

"Not long after my arrival in India I met a man who interested me greatly. Up to this time I had little knowledge of Buddhism, and the outcome which I had seen of this religion had given me so far an unfavourable impression.

"Mr. Kanwick was of Scotch descent, though he had been born in Calcutta, and lived in India the greater part of his life. When we met he was a wealthy bachelor of about fifty-five years of age, with no occupation to tie him down. His knowledge of Oriental subjects was well founded, for he had spent most of his life in studying the manners, dialects, and religions of Asia.