"I understand you entirely," answered Paul, "and can say, without hesitation or reservation, that I love your daughter, and, be she whom or what she may, will gladly marry her, if she can say as much for me."
"I thought I could not be mistaken in my man," answered Ah Ben. "I have believed in your frankness, honor, and courage from the beginning; and although you came to this house with the intention of deceit, I feel sure that in the more serious situations of life you are to be relied upon. You have spoken to Dorothy, Mr. Henley, and I am confident she shares my trust in you."
"I hope so," answered Paul.
"I know it," the old man replied; "and let me tell you further that this match is not one subservient to the ends of utility or profit; for, were such the motive, the very end would be defeated. Dorothy must love the man she marries, with all her heart and soul; and you can readily understand, ostracized as we are, how difficult it has been to find such a one. For more than a century we have sought in vain, and I have pressed every opportunity and strained every power to bring about such a meeting and such a result as I trust will shortly follow; but the world has given us no chance, and those few who have been able to see us have only fled in terror!"
"Am I at liberty, then, to prove my devotion to your daughter by asking her to marry me?"
"You have already done so," replied Ah Ben, "and I have already given my consent; but I warn you, Mr. Henley, that in your intercourse with my daughter you should remember that you are dealing with a nature far more intense, and with far greater capacity to love, than any you have ever known. While the most fervid desire of Dorothy"s life has doubtless been to meet some creature with whom she might affiliate, I believe she would forego even that happiness if convinced that it would prove disastrous to the object of her affection."
Paul extended his hands to Ah Ben, who took them with fervor. "Dear old man!" he said, "although I am speaking to a ghost, I am not afraid of you; and knowing how much you have suffered, it shall be my aim to help and comfort you; for have you not shown me how close is the other world, and so in a measure removed the dread of death? How truly do I feel that those who have left us may be close around us, although we can not see them."
And then, with a new light on all that surrounded him, Paul bade Ah Ben good-night, and went to his room.
10
The following morning, Mr. Henley was puzzled, in thinking over the conversation of the previous night, to remember that he had not been alarmed at the revelations which Ah Ben had made. The things he had seen and the words he had heard were amazing, but they had not terrified him; and when he recalled the easy and natural manner in which he had talked, he attributed the fact to the same mental change whereby he had perceived the visions.
The breakfast room was deserted, neither Dorothy nor Ah Ben being present; and so Paul partook of the meal alone, which he found prepared as usual. He lingered over his second cup of tea in the hope that the young lady would join him; but after loitering quite beyond the usual hour, he sauntered out into the garden, trusting to find her there. But Dorothy was nowhere to be seen, and Henley sank dejectedly into the old rustic bench to await her coming.
An hour pa.s.sed, but no token of a human being was in evidence; not even the voice nor the footstep of a servant had been heard, and Paul sat consuming cigarettes at a rate that showed clearly his impatience. At last he returned to the house, and going to his room took pen and paper and wrote, in a large hand:
Will Miss Guir kindly let me know at what hour I may see her?
I shall await her answer in the garden.
PAUL HENLEY.
Not being able to find a servant, he took this downstairs and suspended it from the hanging lamp by a thread, and then returned to the garden to tramp up and down the neglected paths, between the boxwood bushes, and to burn more cigarettes. He had not the slightest hope of finding Ah Ben, as that individual never put in an appearance until the day was far spent--in fact, not generally until after the shadows of evening were well advanced; and the only servant he had seen was the dumb boy alluded to, and even he had only appeared occasionally. Clearly there was nothing to do but wait. But waiting brought neither Dorothy nor Ah Ben, and Paul began to wonder seriously where his hosts could have taken themselves. The time wore on, and the shadow of a tall fir showed that the hour of noon had pa.s.sed. Had he been left in sole possession of this old mansion, whose history was so amazing, and yet whose very existence appeared mythical? He wandered back into the house, and pa.s.sing through the hall, stopped suddenly. His note was gone. Surely it had been taken, for it could not have fallen. Examining the lamp, Henley saw that a short end of the thread was hanging, indicating that it had been broken and the note carried away. Some one had pa.s.sed through the building since he had left it. Could it have been the girl? and if so, why had she avoided him? One thing appeared certain; she would know where to expect his letters, and he would now write another. In twenty minutes he had prepared the following, which, having sealed, he again suspended from the lamp in the hall:
DEAREST GIRL--I have waited all the morning to see you, and am growing fearfully impatient. Is it business or pleasure that keeps you away? Why not tell me frankly just what it is, as I can not bear to think that I am avoided from indifference, or because you are getting tired of me. Have I outstayed my welcome at Guir House?
I entreat you to give me an answer and an interview, as I am so lonely without you; just how lonely I will tell you when we meet.
PAUL.
Having left this dangling from the same thread, he went out for a walk; and thinking it possible that he might meet Ah Ben in the forest, went in that direction.
The leaves were now falling rapidly, and the clear sky was visible through the bare limbs above; and the open s.p.a.ces were beginning to give the woods quite a wintry aspect. Guir House was visible from a greater distance than he had ever seen it, and Paul sat down upon a fallen log to take in the picture of the quaint old mansion, buried in the depths of a trackless, almost impenetrable forest. He sang a verse of a familiar song in a loud voice, with the hope of attracting attention, but the distant echo of the last words was the only response that he got. Then he threw himself upon the ground and whistled and smoked alternately, his anxiety constantly growing; but the gentle sighing of the wind in the tree tops, and the uncertain rustling of the leaves, were but poor comfort. Was this to be the end of his strange visit? Was he to start back upon his homeward journey without an opportunity to bid his phenomenal hosts good-bye? He could not bear the thought. Dorothy at all events must be found. He would search the grounds and ransack the house. Surely she must be somewhere within reach of his voice. But then she was so strange, so different from any woman he had ever known. How could he tell, perhaps she had left the old place forever! Henley had not realized until now what a deep and overpowering dependence had suddenly developed in him toward these people. They seemed to hold the key to another world in a more practical and tangible way than he had ever deemed it possible for any mortal-appearing man to do. Even to be shut out from the wonderful city of Levachan would be an overwhelming loss, and how could he ever hope to see it again without their aid?
To be deprived forever of the spiritual influence of these eccentric, half-earthly acquaintances was a thought he could not tolerate. Even the horrors through which they had pa.s.sed appeared trivial as compared with the glimpses they had afforded him of happiness. But to see these things--to feel the mystery of their power and beauty just beginning to descend and take possession of him--and then to be s.n.a.t.c.hed back to earth, with the inability to return, was too horrible, and like the ecstatic visions of a drowning man cut short by rescue. While he had Ah Ben and Dorothy within his reach, he felt the possibility of return; but suddenly they had gone, and for the first time he realized what they had been to him. Then it began to dawn upon him what these people must have suffered in a century and a half, and what they must continue to endure for untold time to come, in their inability to return in full to that world they had left, or even to take part in the affairs of this. Surely their case was far worse than his, for after a few years he would be freed from the bondage of matter, and would grapple with the mysteries which had become so fascinating; but with them it was different. Unfitted for either world, without a friend and alone, they must drag out their weary existence until the law of Karma was satisfied. But he would not give them up; he could not; for were they not the new life, the new atmosphere, the very essence of his newly discovered self? He had felt, and seen, how possible it was for a man to tread on air--to walk the upper regions of the sky, and he could never again be contented to crawl upon the surface of the ground like a worm. But without Ah Ben he must crawl. With him, Paul felt that all things were possible, which powers he felt that Dorothy also possessed; though, alas, through the crime, and earth-bound cravings of his host, these powers had been sadly curtailed.
Nerveless and dispirited he returned to the garden gate. Some one had been there since he had pa.s.sed, for there were fresh foot-prints along the walk, of a small, feminine type, and directed toward the forest. The steps had pa.s.sed outward, and their track was lost in the leaves beyond. Surely Dorothy had left the house and gone for a ramble in the woods without having seen him. How could he have missed her, and could it have been intentional, were thoughts which came unpleasantly to Paul at that moment. He stood gazing long and earnestly in the direction taken by the departing footsteps, and doing so, his attention was attracted by the flight of a bird which came swooping towards him from the depths of the woodland glade.
Nearer and nearer it came, uttering a strange, shrill cry, as if to attract his attention; and then, after circling in the air above his head, came fluttering down, and lighted upon the gate-post at his elbow. It was Dorothy"s parrot. But what did it mean by this unusual freak of familiarity? Paul spoke to the bird, which pleased it; and when he put out his hand to smooth its feathers, the parrot lifted its wings, and with a loud cackle exhibited a note which had been carefully tied beneath one of them. Henley relieved the animal of its burden, and discovered that the note was addressed to himself. When he looked around again, the parrot had flown away. This is what the note contained:
GUIR HOUSE.
MY OWN DEAR COMRADE--I call you my own because you are all that I ever had, but even now the memory of our few brief interviews is all that is left to me, for I must go without you. So happy was I when we first met, that I don"t mind telling you, since we shall not meet again, how, in antic.i.p.ation, I rested in your dear arms and felt your loving caresses; for you were all the world to me then--the only world I had ever known--and the break of day seemed close at hand. But soon the thought of drawing you down into that awful abyss "twixt heaven and earth, which has whirled its black shadows about me for more than a century, seized me, and I could not willingly make a thrall of the one I loved; and so I leave you to those for whom you are fitted, while I shall continue my solitary life as before. You say that you are lonely without me!
But what is your loneliness to mine? I, who never had a comrade; who never felt the joy of friendship; and who was dazed with the sudden flush of love, of hunger satisfied, of companionship! Have you ever felt the want of these, dear Paul? Have you ever known what it is to be alone--to live in an empty world--and that, not for a time, but for ages? Yes, you will say, you understand it, and that you pity me, and yet you do not know its meaning; for you at least can live out the life for which G.o.d and nature have fitted you, while I am fit for nothing. You know not what it is to be shunned; to be avoided; to be feared! You go your way, and smile and nod to those you meet, and they are pleased to see you. You are welcome among your friends, as they to you. Live on in that precious state, and feel blessed and happy, for there are worse conditions, although you know it not.
And now I am going to tell you a strange thing. It is this: I have shadowed your life from the hour of your birth. I have watched your career, and where able have guided and helped you, knowing that you were one whom I could love. I have helped to make you what you are, and therefore my right of possession is doubly founded, even though my love be too great to lead you astray. Gradually I led you up to the hour when all was ripe, and then mentally impressed you with the letter which you thought you received, and which I knew would affect you through your strongest characteristics--love of adventure, and--curiosity--as well as from the fact that you were susceptible to mental influence. You came, and I was happy--more happy than you will ever know--until my unsated Karma thwarted my plan, and showed that while seeking my own peace, I might possibly endanger yours. That ended all. I could go no further. But even now, as before, I shall come to you in spirit, during the still hours of night; for my love is more intense and strangely different from that which waking men are wont to feel. It is that which sometimes comes in dreams. Do you not know what I mean?
You will feel bewildered on reading this, and at a loss to understand many things, but remember that your inward or spiritual sight has been opened through the power of hypnotism, and you must not judge things as in your normal state.
When you reached our little station of Guir, you were expecting to find me there, and expectation is the proper frame of mind in which to produce a strong impression; and therefore, although you did not know what I was like, Ah Ben and I together easily made you see me as I was, together with the cart and horse; and although you actually got into the stage which was waiting, you thought you were in the cart with me. The incident of the broken spring was merely suggested as a fitting means to bring you back physically from the coach to the cart, where for the first time, in the moonlight, you saw me in semi-material form, visible as a shadow to some men, but wholly so to you. Had I appeared thus at the station, I should have alarmed all who saw me, and so I came to you only. The two worlds are so closely intermingled that men often live in one while their bodies are in another, and to those who are susceptible, the immaterial can be made more real than the other. I know these things, because, while at home in neither, I have been in both.
And now, dear comrade, think sometimes of her who loves you, and to whom you have been the only joy; and she will be with you always, although you may not know it, except in your dreams.
One more word. Think happily of the dead, for they are happy, and in a way you can not understand. If you love them truly, rejoice that they have gone, for what you call their death is but their birth, with powers transcending those of their former state, as light transcends the darkness. Disturb them not with idle yearnings, lest your thought unsettle the serenity of their lives.
Let the ignorance which has ruined me be a warning. Some day I shall complete my term of loneliness, and begin life anew. We will know each other then, dear Paul, as here. Remember, I shall always be your spirit guide. DOROTHY.
Henley folded the letter and looked about him in bewilderment, and with a sense of loneliness he had never known before. He thought he could realize the emptiness of life, the dissociation with all things, of which Dorothy had spoken. He was adrift, without anchor in either world. Heart-broken and crushed, he determined to find the girl at all hazards, and bounded down the garden path in search of Ah Ben, who alone could help him. At the last of the boxwood trees he stopped, and then, _in an agony of horror, beheld the roofless ruin of the old house as Ah Ben had shown it to him_. The crumbling walls and broken belfry, half hidden amid the encroaching trees, were all that was left of Guir House and its s.p.a.cious grounds. Heaps of stone and piles of rubbish beset his path, and the open portals, choked with wild gra.s.s and bushes, showed glimpses of the sky beyond. In a panic of terror lest his reason had gone, Paul flew madly on in the direction from which Dorothy had first brought him. But not an indication of what once were ornamental grounds remained. Beyond, an unbroken forest was upon every side, and the growth was wild and dense. On he rushed, with both hands pressed tightly against his head, neither knowing nor caring whither he went. But at last two shadowy forms emerged from a dense thicket of calmia upon his left, and Paul felt that their influence was kindly, and that they had come to guide him back into the world he had left behind.