Chapter 21

"But suppose they are beautiful and happy memories?" I suggested.

She shuddered.

"They couldn't be! We all fail somewhere."

This was true enough, and I offered no comment.

"I feel,"--she went on, hesitatingly--"that you are leaving us for some undiscovered country--and that you will reach some plane of thought and action to which we shall never rise. I don't think I am sorry for this. I am not one of those who want to rise. I should be perfectly content to live a few years in a moderate state of happiness and then drop into oblivion--and I think most people are like me."

"Very unambitious!" I said, smiling.

"Yes--I daresay it is--but one gets tired of it all. Tired of things and people--at least I do. Now that man Santoris--"

Despite myself, I felt the warm blood flushing my cheeks.

"Yes? What of him?" I queried, lightly.

"Well, I can understand that HE has always been alive!" and she turned her eyes upon me with an expression of positive dread--"Immensely, actively, perpetually alive! He seems to hold some mastery over the very air! I am afraid of him--terribly afraid! It is a relief to me to know that he and his strange yacht have gone!"

"But, Catherine,"--I ventured to say--"the yacht was not really 'strange,'--it was only moved by a different application of electricity from that which the world at present knows. You would not call it 'strange' if the discovery made by Mr. Santoris were generally adopted?"

She sighed.

"Perhaps not! But just now it seems a sort of devil's magic to me. Anyhow, I'm glad he's gone. You're sorry, I suppose?"

"In a way I am,"--I answered, quietly--"I thought him very kind and charming and courteous--no one could be a better host or a pleasanter companion. And I certainly saw nothing 'devilish' about him. As for that collar of jewels, there are plenty of so-called 'thought-readers' who could have found out its existence and said as much of it as he did--"

She uttered a low cry.

"Don't speak of it!" she said--"For Heaven's sake, don't speak of it!"

She buried her face in her pillow, and I waited silently for her to recover. When she turned again towards me, she said--

"I am not well yet,--I cannot bear too much. I only want you to know before you go away that I have no unkind feeling towards you,--things seem pushing me that way, but I have not really!--and you surely will believe me--"

"Surely!" I said, earnestly--"Dear Catherine, do not worry yourself! These impressions of yours will pass."

"I hope so!" she said--"I shall try to forget! And you--you will meet Mr. Santoris again, do you think?"

I hesitated.

"I do not know."

"You seem to have some attraction for each other," she went on--"And I suppose your beliefs are alike. To me they are dreadful beliefs!--worse than barbarism!"

I looked at her with all the compassion I truly felt.

"Why? Because we believe that God is all love and tenderness and justice?--because we cannot think He would have created life only to end in death?--because we are sure that He allows nothing to be wasted, not even a thought?--and nothing to go unrecompensed, either in good or in evil? Surely these are not barbarous beliefs?"

A curious look came over her face.

"If I believed in anything,"--she said--"I would rather be orthodox, and believe in the doctrine of original sin and the Atonement."

"Then you would start with the idea that the supreme and all-wise Creator could not make a perfect work!" I said--"And that He was obliged to invent a scheme to redeem His own failure! Catherine, if you speak of barbarism, this is the most barbarous belief of all!"

She stared at me, amazed.

"You would be put out of any church in Christendom for such a speech as that!" she said.

"Possibly!" I answered, quietly--"But I should not and could not be put out of God's Universe--nor, I am certain, would He reject my soul's eternal love and adoration!"

A silence fell between us. Then I heard her sobbing. I put my arm round her, and she laid her head on my shoulder.

"I wish I could feel as you do,"--she whispered--"You must be very happy! The world is all beautiful in your eyes--and of course with your ideas it will continue to be beautiful--and even death will only come to you as another transition into life. But you must not think anybody will ever understand you or believe you or follow you--people will only look upon you as mad, or the dupe of your own foolish imagination!"

I smiled as I smoothed her pillow for her and laid her gently back upon it.

"I can stand that!" I said--"If somebody who is lost in the dark jeers at me for finding the light, I shall not mind!"

We did not speak much after that--and when I said good-night to her I also said good-bye, as I knew I should have to leave the yacht early in the morning.

I spent the rest of the time at my disposal in talking to Mr. Harland, keeping our conversation always on the level of ordinary topics. He seemed genuinely sorry that I had determined to go, and if he could have persuaded me to stay on board a few days longer I am sure he would have been pleased.

"I shall see you off in the morning,"--he said--"And believe me I shall miss you very much. We don't agree on certain subjects--but I like you all the same."

"That's something!" I said, cheerfully--"It would never do if we were all of the same opinion!"

"Will you meet Santoris again, do you think?"

This was the same question Catherine had put to me, and I answered it in the same manner.

"I really don't know!"

"Would you LIKE to meet him again?" he urged.

I hesitated, smiling a little.

"Yes, I think so!"

"It is curious," he pursued--"that I should have been the means of bringing you together. Your theories of life and death are so alike that you must have thoughts in common. Many years have passed since I knew Santoris--in fact, I had completely lost sight of him, though I had never forgotten his powerful personality--and it seemt rather odd to me that he should suddenly turn up again while you were with me--"

"Mere coincidence,"--I said, lightly--"and common enough, after all. Like attracts like, you know."

"That may be. There is certainly something in the law of attraction between human beings which we do not understand,"--he answered, musingly--"Perhaps if we did--"

He broke off and relapsed into silence.

That night, just before going to bed, I was met by Dr. Brayle in the corridor leading to my cabin. I was about to pass him with a brief good-night, but he stopped me.

"So you are really going to-morrow!" he said, with a furtive narrowing of his eyelids as he looked at me--"Well! Perhaps it is best! You are a very disturbing magnet."

I smiled.

"Am I? In what way?"

"I cannot tell you without seeming to give the lie to reason,"--he answered, brusquely. "I believe to a certain extent in magnetism--in fact, I have myself tested its power in purely nervous patients,--but I have never accepted the idea that persons can silently and almost without conscious effort, influence others for either malign or beneficial purposes. In your presence, however, the thing is forced upon me as though it were a truth, while I know it to be a fallacy."

"Isn't it too late to talk about such things to-night?" I asked, wishing to cut short the conversation.

"Perhaps it is--but I shall probably never have the chance to say what I wish to say,"--he replied,--and he leaned against the stairway just where the light in the saloon sent forth a bright ray upon his face, showing it to be dark with a certain frowning perplexity--"You have studied many things in your own impulsive feminine fashion, and you are beyond all the stupidity of the would-be agreeable female who thinks a prettily feigned ignorance becoming, so that I can speak frankly. I can now tell you that from the first day I saw you I felt I had known you before--and you filled me with a curious emotion of mingled liking and repulsion. One night when you were sitting with us on deck--it was before we met that fellow Santoris--I watched you with singular interest--every turn of your head, every look of your eyes seemed familiar--and for a moment I--I almost loved you! Oh, you need not mind my saying this!"--and he laughed a little at my involuntary exclamation--"it was nothing--it was only a passing mood,--for in another few seconds I hated you as keenly! There you have it. I do not know why I should have been visited by these singular experiences--but I own they exist--that is why I am rather glad you are going."

"I am glad, too,"--I said--and I held out my hand in parting--"I should not like to stay where my presence caused a moment's uneasiness or discomfort."

"That's not putting it quite fairly,"--he answered, taking my offered hand and holding it loosely in his own--"But you are an avowed psychist, and in this way you are a little 'uncanny.' I should not like to offend you--"

"You could not if you tried," I said, quickly.

"That means I am too insignificant in your mind to cause offence,"--he observed--"I daresay I am. I live on the material plane and am content to remain there. You are essaying very high flights and ascending among difficulties of thought and action which are entirely beyond the useful and necessary routine of life,--and in the end these things may prove too much for you." Here he dropped my hand. "You bring with you a certain atmosphere which is too rarefied for ordinary mortals--it has the same effect as the air of a very high mountain on a weak heart--it is too strong--one loses breath, and the power to think coherently. You produce this result on Miss Harland, and also to some extent on me--even slightly on Mr. Harland,--and poor Swinton alone does not fall under the spell, having no actual brain to impress. You need someone who is accustomed to live in the same atmosphere as yourself to match you in your impressions and opinions. We are on a different range of thought and feeling and experience--and you must find us almost beyond endurance--"

"As you find me!" I interposed, smiling.

"I will not say that--no! For there seems to have been a time when we were all on the same plane--"

He paused, and there was a moment's tense silence. The little silvery chime of a clock in the saloon struck twelve.

"Good-night, Dr. Brayle!" I said.

He lifted his brooding eyes and looked at me.

"Good-night! If I have annoyed you by my scepticism in certain matters, you must make allowances for temperament and pardon me. I should be sorry if you bore me any ill-will--"

What a curious note of appeal there was in his voice! All at once it seemed to me that he was asking me to forgive him for that long-ago murder which I had seen reflected in a vision!--and my blood grew suddenly heated with an involuntary wave of deep resentment.

"Dr. Brayle," I said,--"pray do not trouble yourself to think any more about me. Our ways will always be apart, and we shall probably never see each other again. It really does not matter to you in the least what my feeling may be with regard to you,--it can have no influence on either your present or your future. Friendships cannot be commanded."

"You will not say," he interrupted me--"that you have no dislike of me?"

I hesitated--then spoke frankly.

"I will not,"--I answered--"because I cannot!"

For one instant our eyes met--then came SOMETHING between us that suggested an absolute and irretrievable loss--"Not yet!" he murmured--"Not yet!" and with a forced smile, he bowed and allowed me to pass to my cabin. I was glad to be there--glad to be alone--and overwhelmed as I was by the consciousness that the memories of my soul had been too strong for me to resist, I was thankful that I had had the courage to express my invincible opposition to one who had, as I seemed instinctively to realise, been guilty of an unrepented crime.

That night I slept dreamlessly, and the next morning before seven o'clock I had left the luxurious 'Diana' for the ordinary passenger steamer plying from Portree to Glasgow. Mr. Harland kept his promise of seeing me off, and expressed his opinion that I was very foolish to travel with a crowd of tourists and other folk, when I might have had the comfort and quiet of his yacht all the way; but he could not move me from my resolve, though in a certain sense I was sorry to say good-bye to him.

"You must write to us as soon as you get home,"--he said, at parting--"A letter will find us this week at Gairloch--I shall cruise about a bit longer."

I made no reply for the moment. He had no idea that I was not going home at all, nor did I intend to tell him.

"You shall hear from me as soon as possible,"--I said at last, evasively--"I shall be very busy for a time--"

He laughed.

"Oh, I know! You are always busy! Will you ever get tired, I wonder?"

I smiled. "I hope not!"

With that we shook hands and parted, and within the next twenty minutes the steamer had started, bearing me far away from the Isle of Skye, that beautiful, weird and mystic region full of strange legends and memories, which to me had proved a veritable wonderland. I watched the 'Diana' at anchor in the bay of Portree till I could see her no more,--and it was getting on towards noon when I suddenly noticed the people on board the steamer making a rush to one side of the deck to look at something that was evidently both startling and attractive. I followed the crowd,--and my heart gave a quick throb of delight when I saw poised on the sparkling waters the fairylike 'Dream'!--her sails white as the wings of a swan, and her cordage gleaming like woven gold in the brilliant sunshine. She was a thing of perfect beauty as she seemed to glide on the very edge of the horizon like a vision between sky and sea. And as I pressed forward among the thronging passengers to look at her, she dipped her flag in salutation--a salutation I knew was meant for me alone. When the flag ran up again to its former position, murmurs of admiration came from several people around me--

"The finest schooner afloat!"--I heard one man remark--"They say she goes by electricity as well as sailing power."

"She's often seen about here," said another--"She belongs to a foreigner--some prince or other named Santoris."

And I watched and waited,--with unconscious tears in my eyes, till the exquisite fairy vessel disappeared suddenly as though it had become absorbed and melted into the sun; then all at once I thought of the words spoken by the wild Highland 'Jamie' who had given me the token of the bell-heather--"One way in and another way out! One road to the West, and the other to the East, and round about to the meeting-place!"

The meeting-place! Where would it be? I could only think and wonder, hope and pray, as the waves spread their silver foaming distance between me and the vanished 'Dream.'

XIII

THE HOUSE OF ASELZION

It is not necessary to enter into particular details of the journey I now entered upon and completed during the ensuing week. My destination was a remote and mountainous corner of the Biscayan coast, situated a little more than three days' distance from Paris. I went alone, knowing that this was imperative, and arrived without any untoward adventure, scarcely fatigued though I had travelled by night as well as by day. It was only at the end of my journey that I found myself confronted by any difficulty, and then I had to realise that though the 'Chateau d'Aselzion,' as it was called, was perfectly well known to the inhabitants of the surrounding district, no one seemed inclined to show me the nearest way there or even to let me have the accommodation of a vehicle to take me up the steep ascent which led to it. The Chateau itself could be seen from all parts of the village, especially from the seashore, over which it hung like a toppling crown of the fortress-like rock on which it was erected.

"It is a monastery,"--said a man of whom I asked the way, speaking in a curious kind of guttural patois, half French and half Spanish--"No woman goes there."

I explained that I was entrusted with an important message.

He shook his head.

"Not for any money would I take you," he declared. "I should be afraid for myself."

Nothing could move him from his resolve, so I made up my mind to leave my small luggage at the inn and walk up the steep road which I could see winding like a width of white ribbon towards the goal of my desires. A group of idle peasants watched me curiously as I spoke to the landlady and asked her to take care of my few belongings till I either sent for them or returned to fetch them, to which arrangement she readily consented. She was a buxom, pleasant little Frenchwoman, and inclined to be friendly.

"I assure you, Mademoiselle, you will return immediately!" she said, with a bright smile--"The Chateau d'Aselzion is a place where no woman is ever seen--and a lady alone!--ah, mon Dieu!--impossible! There are terrible things done there, so they say--it is a house of mystery! In the daytime it looks as it does now--dark, as though it were a prison!--but sometimes at night one sees it lit up as though it were on fire--every window full of something that shines like the sun! It is a Brotherhood that lives there,--not of the Church--ah no! Heaven forbid!--but they are rich and powerful men--and it is said they study some strange science--our traders serve them only at the outer gates and never go beyond. And in the midnight one hears the organ playing in their chapel, and there is a sound of singing on the very waves of the sea! I beg of you, Mademoiselle, think well of what you do before you go to such a place!--for they will send you away--I am sure they will send you away!"

I smiled and thanked her for her well-meant warning.

"I have a message to give to the Master of the Brotherhood," I said--"If I am not allowed to deliver it and the gate is shut in my face, I can only come back again. But I must do my best to gain an entrance if possible."

And with these words I turned away and commenced my solitary walk. I had arrived in the early afternoon and the sun was still high in the heavens,--the heat was intense and the air was absolutely still. As I climbed higher and higher, the murmuring noises of human life in the little village I had left behind me grew less and less and presently sank altogether out of hearing, and I became gradually aware of the great and solemn solitude that everywhere encompassed me. No stray sheep browsed on the burnt brown grass of the rocky height I was slowly ascending--no bird soared through the dazzling deep blue of the vacant sky. The only sound I could hear was the soft, rhythmic plash of small waves on the beach below, and an indefinite deeper murmur of the sea breaking through a cave in the far distance. There was something very grand in the silence and loneliness of the scene,--and something very pitiful too, so I thought, about my own self, toiling up the rocky path in mingled hope and fear towards that grim pile of dark stone towers and high forbidding walls, where it was just possible I might meet with but a discouraging reception. Yet with the letter from him who signed himself 'Your lover' lying against my heart, I felt I had a talisman to open doors even more closely barred. Nevertheless, my courage gave way a little when I at last stood before the heavy iron gates set in a lofty archway of stone through which I could see nothing but cavernous blackness. The road I had followed ended in a broad circular sweep opposite this archway, and a few tall pines twisted and gnarled in bough and stem, as though the full force of many storm winds had battered and bent them out of their natural shapes, were the only relief to the barrenness of the ground. An iron chain with a massive ring at the end suggested itself as the possible means of pulling a bell or otherwise attracting attention; but for some minutes I had not the boldness to handle it.

I stood gazing at the frowning portal with a sense of utter loneliness and desolation,--the quick, resistless impulse that had fired me to make the journey and which, as it were, had driven me along by its own impetus, suddenly died away into a dreary consciousness of inadequateness and folly on my own part,--and I began to reproach myself for yielding so utterly to the casual influence of one who, after all, must in a reasonable way be considered a stranger. For what was Rafel Santoris to me? Merely an old college friend of the man who for a fortnight had been my host, and with whom he chanced to renew acquaintanceship during a yachting tour. Anything more simple and utterly commonplace never occurred,--yet, here was I full of strange impressions and visions, which were possibly only the result of clever hypnotism, practised on me because the hypnotist had possibly discovered in my temperament some suitable 'subject' matter for an essay of his skill. And I had so readily succumbed to his influence as to make a journey of hundreds of miles to a place I had never heard of before on the chance of seeing a man of whom I knew nothing!--except--that, according to what Rafel Santoris had said of him, he was the follower of a great psychic Teacher whom once I had known.

Such doubtful and darkening thoughts as these, chasing one another rapidly through my brain, made me severely accuse myself of rash and unpardonable folly in all I had done or was doing,--and I was almost on the point of turning away and retracing my steps, when a sudden ray of light, not of the sun, struck itself sharply as it were before my eyes and hurt them with its blinding glitter. It was like a whip of fire lashing my hesitating mind, and it startled me into instant action. Without pausing further to think what I was about, I went straight up to the entrance of the Chateau and pulled at the iron chain. The gates swung open at once and swiftly, without sound--and I stepped into the dark passage within--whereupon they as noiselessly closed again behind me. There was no going back now,--and nerving myself to resolution, I walked quickly on through what was evidently a long corridor with a lofty arched roof of massive stone; it was dark and cool and refreshing after the great heat outside, and I saw a faint light at the end towards which I made my way. The light widened as I drew near, and an exclamation of relief and pleasure escaped me as I suddenly found myself in a picturesque quadrangle, divided into fair green lawns and parterres of flowers. Straight opposite me as I approached, a richly carved double oaken door stood wide open, enabling me to look into a vast circular domed hall, in the centre of which a fountain sent up tall silver columns of spray which fell again with a tinkling musical splash into a sunken pool bordered with white marble, where delicate pale blue water-lilies floated on the surface of the water. Enchanted by this glimpse of loveliness, I went straight on and entered without seeking the right of admission,--and then stood looking about me in wonder and admiration. If this was the House of Aselzion, where such difficult lessons had to be learned and such trying ordeals had to be faced, it certainly did not seem like a house of penance and mortification but rather of luxury. Exquisite white marble statues were set around the hall in various niches between banked-up masses of roses and other blossoms--many of them perfect copies of the classic models, and all expressing either strength and resolution, or beauty and repose. And most wonderful of all was the light, that poured in from the high dome--I could have said with truth that it was like that 'light which never was on sea or land.' It was not the light of the sun, but something more softened and more intense, and was totally indescribable.