The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance Part 34

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 flus.h.i.+ng 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s."

"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 compa.s.sion I truly felt.

"Why? Because we believe that G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sed 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--"