"Ask yourself," said Eberstein, and looked steadily into the eyes of Montrose.

"I ask myself!" murmured the guest, mechanically compelled to the speech.

Those kind grey eyes on a level with his own a little distance away poured, as it seemed, such a flood of light towards him that Montrose voluntarily closed his own. Yet it was not a dazzling light which need have frightened him, but an all-enfolding steady radiance, which bathed his whole being in luminous splendour, until he felt that he was partaking of that peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth understanding. The tide of glory lifted him up higher and higher beyond the gross envelope of the physical body until he felt himself soaring without wings into an all-embracing sphere of glorious music which expressed itself in colour.

In this ocean of rainbow hues he floated, aware that he was using super-physical senses to view super-physical scenes. On him descended, with the swiftness of thought, a golden cloud more brilliant than the noonday sun, and this dissolved away to reveal the form of a young girl clothed in floating white draperies. The face was fair, the hair corn-coloured, the eyes deeply blue and the figure majestic and graceful. Anything more unlike the elfin beauty of Alice can scarcely be imagined. Yet he knew beyond all doubt that this was Alice in another shape which she had worn in another clime under alien stars. His soul flowed out to blend with her soul in one flame of unity. But there was a barrier between them which Montrose strove to break through. Try as he might he could not.

Even in that heaven-world, despair seized him, when he found that the invisible barrier withheld him from his beloved. On her side she seemed equally desirous to come to him, and held out her arms in vain longing.

On his face and her face were looks of appealing love baffled by the impossibility of meeting heart to heart. Then a shadow grew up between them swiftly; the shadow menacing and dark of a yellow-skinned man, rather like a Chinese, from whose throat ran a stream of blood. Who this man was Montrose could not tell, even though he had recognised Alice in a different guise. And the enemy--Montrose felt that the wounded creature was an enemy--grew larger and larger until the blackness of which he was part blotted out the splendour of the girl. Blotted out also the atmosphere of colour and music and radiancy, until Montrose, sinking downward in the gloom, opened his physical eyes to find himself seated in the chair opposite Eberstein. Only a single moment had elapsed, for the journey had been as swift as that of Mahomet to the seventh heaven mounted on Al Borak, but he seemed to have been away for hours. The discrepancy was to Montrose impossible to reconcile, even though he grasped confusedly the fact that he had been--in the Fourth Dimension say--where there is no time.

"You now know what Alice Enistor has to do with you," said Eberstein in a quiet impressive tone.

"I don't in one way," faltered the still bewildered young man, "and yet I do in another. All I can be certain of is that she is mine."

"Undoubtedly. She is yours and you are hers."

"Then why could we not come together?"

"The shadow of your sin came between and parted you."

"My sin?"

"That which you committed five thousand years ago," explained the doctor patiently. "Then, self-willed, self-centred, you would not wait the striking of the hour which would have made you one, and therefore, seeking to obtain your desire by force, you broke the Great Law. The Great Law broke you, as it breaks all who disobey. For many ages your soul and her soul have been asunder, but now in the fullness of time you meet again on this physical plane in new vestments of flesh. But your sin has not yet been expiated, and you cannot yet be one with her you love. The shadow stands between you twain and will stand until the debt is paid."

"The shadow--the man?" stammered Montrose confusedly.

"You owe him a life!"

"But he is my enemy. I feel strongly that he is my enemy."

"He was and is: it depends greatly upon you if he continues to be. If one obeys truly the Law of Love, one must not be angered even with one's enemy. What says the Blessed Son of the Most High G.o.d?"

As if the words had been placed in his mouth, Montrose replied softly: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you!"

Eberstein bowed his stately head. "Such is the Law of Love."

Rubbing his eyes to make certain that he was entirely awake, Montrose sought for an interpretation. "I do not quite understand."

"There is no need for you to understand further, my friend. This much enlightenment has been vouchsafed you through the mercy of G.o.d. For the rest you must work and walk by faith, seeing as in a gla.s.s darkly, obeying the Great Law of your own free will, so that your unselfish love may cause hatred to cease."

"Whose hatred?"

"That of the man you sinned against. Only with the aid of the Blessed One!"--Eberstein made the sign of the cross--"can you prevent the Son of Perdition from descending into the Abyss."

"Who is the Son of Perdition?"

"Your enemy, whom Christ loves as He loves you. Your task is to make yourself a channel through which the grace of the Blessed One can freely pour for the salvation of this erring soul. Oh, think how glorious it is that you should be permitted to be the instrument of Christ in this mighty work."

"But I do not know how to go about the work!" exclaimed the bewildered man.

"Watch and pray, my son, for the time when you must act is near at hand.

Only by making yourself receptive to the holy influence will you know how to act when the time is ripe."

"You will help me?"

"I am bound to help you since I am obedient to the Law. But much has to be done by yourself, Montrose. I cannot command, as each man has free-will with which even the Logos Himself does not interfere. Christ stands at the door of your heart, but will not enter unless you invite His entrance. Only by doing what you ought to do will the Spirit of Love enter and sup with you."

"But what am I to do?" demanded Montrose desperately.

"Ask your own heart."

"It says nothing."

"The time is not yet ripe for it to say anything. Watch and pray! Come,"

the doctor spoke in a more matter-of-fact tone, "it is growing late. Go home and sleep: you are becoming exhausted."

"But tell me, Eberstein, if I am right in what I think," pleaded Montrose earnestly. "I know intuitively that I met Miss Enistor in some previous life and that I loved her, as I love her now when we come together for the first time in this incarnation. I had all the feeling of being her friend. Oh what do I say! Friend is too weak a word--of being her lover. If I understand rightly, some sin committed by me has parted us, and that sin I have to expiate before we can come together again."

"That is the case. But ask me no more now. With the aid of the Blessed One you must work out your salvation in fear and trembling."

"Indicate my enemy and I shall forgive him for Alice's sake," cried the young man with impetuous generosity.

"You must forgive him for his own."

"How can I when I don't know why we are enemies?"

"You will know when it is necessary you should know."

Montrose pa.s.sed his hands across his brow and stood up slowly. "It is all bewildering and difficult."

"Very bewildering and very difficult. I answered that question earlier in the evening. We talk in a circle. To do so is a waste of time.

Good-night!"

Another question was trembling on Montrose's lips, but he refrained from putting it, and with a silent hand-shake departed slowly. Accustomed to come and go at will in this house, which was more a home to him than any habitation he had known, the young man descended the stairs and let himself out into the silent square. The balmy summer night was brilliant with stars, and charged with some mysterious healing influence, which soothed and relaxed his weary nerves. On all sides the great city was yet awake and alive with people, each one intent upon the realisation of his or her desire. But here, isolated from the roaring thoroughfares, the quadrangle was comparatively lonely and dark, as the pa.s.sers-by were few and the lights widely scattered. The central gardens, with their trees and shrubs and turf and flowers, slept within the rusty iron railings, speaking every now and then as a wandering breeze woke the leaves to sigh and whisper. The hurrying steps of a wayfarer, the measured heavy tread of a policeman, the murmur of distant life: Montrose heard these things without hearing as it were, as without seeing he stared at the silent cats gliding through the shadows. He walked along, wrapped up in his own thoughts, seeking mechanically his rooms and bed.

Notwithstanding his accession to considerable wealth, the fortunate youth had but slightly changed his mode of living. He enjoyed better lodgings, better clothes, more nourishing food, and was free from the obligation of compulsory work to exist. But he still lived in unfashionable Bloomsbury, a quiet, inexpensive, and somewhat recluse life, not seeking to enter what is known as society. With his good looks and undeniable talents and newly acquired wealth, he would have been welcome to the gay throng who flutter in the sunshine of pleasure. But there was nothing in Montrose which responded to such aimless allurements. Once or twice friends had taken him to this house and that, where the b.u.t.terflies gathered, and on this particular night Eberstein had induced him to dine at Mrs. Barrast's. But entertainments of all kinds bored Montrose immensely, and only the presence of Alice had aided him to endure the shallow chatter of his hostess and the artificiality of his surroundings. The after-events in Eberstein's room had both startled and awed him, so that he was still greatly moved by what had taken place when he reached his modest lodgings.

But, as common sense told him, thinking would not help him, as his thoughts spun in a circle and always brought him back to the same point.

That point was the meeting with Alice and the weird feelings which contact with her personality had aroused in him. She belonged to his life in some way which he could not quite put into words, and he belonged to hers. They were together and yet apart, but what parted them it was impossible to say, as the vision had not indicated in detail the especial sin, or what had led to the commission of that sin. Soon he would know more--Eberstein had a.s.sured him of that. Therefore it would be best to wait for the knowledge. He had been given light enough in the darkness of the path to take the next step, and that light revealed Alice waiting for him to come to her. He was only too willing to do so, as the feeling that he loved her deeply grew with overwhelming swiftness. When she knew what was in his heart and he knew what was in hers, then the next step could be taken. What it might be and where it would lead to Montrose could not say.

However, the doctor had given him necessary instructions for the moment in the phrase "Watch and pray!" To watch for the dawning love in Alice and to pray that he might be worthy of such love seemed to be his task, and a very delightful task it would be. Therefore Montrose knelt down and prayed with all his clean heart that every possible blessing might befall the girl and that, if it was G.o.d's will, he might become her husband to cherish and protect her. Then he went to bed in a peaceful frame of mind. Sleep came to him almost immediately, but before his eyes closed he felt that Alice was near him, and knew that in some wordless manner Alice spoke to him.

"We have much to learn and there is pain in the learning," she whispered, "but we are together to suffer together."

"Suffering does not matter," said Montrose, as in a dream, "we are together!"

CHAPTER VIII