"Very well, then," he went on, "I will speak my mind. I must be very candid, even if I seem harsh. When I say you must cut yourself off from all the a.s.sociations of the past, I mean your mother also."
She started up in dismay, understanding his full meaning at last. "Oh no, not that!"
"Yes, just that, and finally that. She is your mother, and you love her; but you are a human soul as well as she, with a right to healthy, normal life. It is contrary to the law of progress to sacrifice the young to the old. Your mother"s comfort has been your undoing, and I cannot for an instant agree to your submission of this question to her. You must a.s.sert your right to yourself, and she must surrender her authority to me, and she must leave you for a time. I would say this even if my own mother spoke to me through you. Your struggles tear my heart, and your mother"s presence only prolongs your sufferings."
"You must not blame her," she loyally insisted. "I am to blame. My guides tell me that if I would surrender myself completely to them I would find peace," she ended, slowly, sadly, as if in confession.
"Peace! Yes, the peace of the epileptic or the mad. No, no, joy and health do not lie that way. If I were the scientist merely, I would say, "Keep on, and I will stand by to observe your struggles." But I am not, I am something else than scientist. It angers and agonizes me to see you tortured. I cannot endure it and I will not. In order that I may do all that I hope for, you must give yourself wholly into my care." He was speaking now in a low and throbbing voice, oblivious of time and s.p.a.ce. "I must be something more than physician or friend. I have been saying "must" to you, but I am, after all, a very strange autocrat. My power is dependent on you." Then, in answer to her questioning eyes, he hurried on: "I love you, dear girl, and if you find you can trust yourself to me, fully, in this way, then I am sure of victory. Can you say this? I hope you can, for then I will have the most powerful magician in all the world fighting on my side. Are you able to do this? Can you say you love me and that you will come to me, trusting in me as in a husband?"
No one was astir in the car but the porter, but had it been filled with clamoring tongues and seeking, impertinent eyes, she would have been conscious only of his tender glance, his earnest voice, and the momentous question being pressed upon her. She struggled to speak, but could not, and he hastened on: "I will be honest with you. Your mother does not trust me. She knows and resents my feeling towards you. She knows also that I consider her separation from you necessary, for a time, and is hurt and saddened by it; but she will come to see the necessity of this measure. I do not ask an immediate answer--though I wish your heart were mine this minute--but I do want you to know that from the first moment I saw you your life has been a part of mine. I could not forget you, though I tried to do so, and I will not now give you up."
She still sat like an exquisite statue of meditation, looking out into the night, benumbed and breathless with the pa.s.sion his words evoked.
Suddenly she turned and vehemently exclaimed: "You ought not to ask me this. I"m not fit to be your wife."
"Let me be the judge of that."
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""YOU NEED NOT SPEAK--JUST PUT YOUR HAND IN MINE AND I WILL UNDERSTAND""]
"But you don"t realize what I am. You must not think of me in that way. I can"t let you. I _am_ different from other women. You must not deceive yourself."
"I do not. I know, to my joy, that you are different from other girls; that is why I am here and asking you to be my wife. That is why I loved you that day on the mountain-side, because you were different."
"No, no!" she despairingly exclaimed. "You don"t understand. I mean that I _am_ surrounded by spirits, and they will make you ashamed of me. Think what your friends would say?"
"I am not responsible to my friends. I don"t care what they say. They are not choosing my wife for me. I _do_ know what you mean, and your protest increases my love for you. I am not concerned with your ghosts--only with your character."
"But I am a _medium_!" she went on, desperately. "I have this awful power. You"re all wrong about mother and Mr. Clarke. They have nothing to do with what happens." Her beautiful hands were clinched and her face set in the resolution to force her confession upon him. Her bosom rose and fell piteously as she struggled for words, "You must not misunderstand me. I believe in the spirit-world. Sometimes I say I don"t, but I do."
He spoke soothingly: "There is nothing wrong or disgraceful in your theory; it is your practice of trance, of mediumship, to which I object, and which I intend to prevent."
"I want you to do that. I hate my trances and those public circles.
But will that put an end to the rappings and other things that go on around me when I am awake? That is the question."
This was the question, but he rode st.u.r.dily over it, resolute to subordinate it if not to trample it under foot.
"Not at all. The real question is very simple: can you trust yourself to me, fully, because you love me? If you do I will answer for the rest. I do not know why you meant so much to me that day. I do not know why, out of all the women I know, you move me most profoundly; but so it is and I am glad to have it so." He said this with a grave tenderness which moved her like a phrase from some great symphony, and as she raised her tear-stained, timid face to his she saw him as he seemed at that first meeting on the mountain-side, in the sunset glow, so manly, so frank, so full of power that he conquered her with a glance, and with that vision she knew her heart. Her eyes fell, her throat thickened, and her bosom throbbed with a strange yearning. She loved, but the way of confession was hard.
Understanding her emotion, and mindful of the place in which they sat, he softly said: "You need not speak--just put your hand in mine and I will understand."
Her hand, like some shy sentient thing, first drew away, fell hesitant, then leaped to his and nestled in his palm. He had planned to be very restrained and very circ.u.mspect, but the touch of her trembling fingers moved him out of his predetermined self-possession, and, careless of all the surroundings, he stooped and kissed her, then exultantly, warningly said: "Remember, I am now your chief "control,"
and there are to be no other "guides" but me."
With those words, all fear, all question, all care (save that vague distrust which the maiden feels when yielding herself to the first caress of the lover) dropped from her. The powers, the hallucinations, which had separated her from the world of womankind were forgotten, lost in the glow of her confidence and love.
THE END