"Does the trouble you predicted come from that quarter?"

"Yes!"

"Well, it is two against two. Alice and I can fight her father and Narvaez."

"Don't be over-confident, or you will invite disaster," said the doctor dryly. "There is much doing of which you know nothing. That is why I am here to aid you, my friend. I cannot do everything, as a great deal has to be done by you and Alice with what intuition and strength you possess. With Alice the ordeal has already commenced."

Montrose started to his feet. "Is she in danger?" he asked excitedly.

"If so, I must go back to Tremore at once."

"There is no need. What she has to do must be done alone, and you would do her more harm than good by going to her a.s.sistance. Hitherto I have protected her with my strength, which has increased her own. Now for a certain time that strength has been withdrawn. Narvaez will know the moment I cease to guard her."

"What will he do?" demanded the young man, clenching his fists.

"Nothing that physical strength can deal with, so don't get ready to fight, my friend. Narvaez will not hurt the girl, but he will endeavour to learn from her something he has long wished to know. It is necessary that he should know and that his pupil should know also. Therefore, for a time he is permitted to work his will. There! There! He will only make use of her clairvoyant powers, so she will suffer little."

"I don't want her to suffer at all."

"Unless she does in some degree, she will not progress."

"Narvaez is such a beast."

"No. He is only a man blinded by pride in his intellectual knowledge.

You must pity him for his blindness and do your best to help him. Hate only ceases when Love is used to vanquish it. Calm yourself, Montrose.

What must be must be if the Will of G.o.d is to be done."

"I wish you hadn't told me," cried the young man, greatly agitated.

"That is a weak thing to say. I told you purposely, so that you may develop faith and patience. Can you not trust me?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"Then show it by waiting quietly here until I tell you to return to Tremore, my friend. This is the time of preparation to meet and baffle the trouble I warned you against. Stand in the strength of Christ and not in your own strength. He never fails those who trust in Him.

To-morrow morning you must come with me to early celebration. By partaking of the Body and Blood of The Blessed One"--Eberstein made the sign of the cross--"you will gain the necessary strength to stand up bravely against the Powers of Darkness."

"Narvaez?"

Eberstein bowed his stately head. "G.o.d pity him and save him," he murmured, with infinite compa.s.sion.

CHAPTER XV

THE TRANCE

A man on a suburban road at noonday, with the sun shining brilliantly, walks along thinking of his private affairs and heedless of surroundings. But when the toils of day are ended, and he proceeds along that same road in a darkness scarcely illuminated by a few lamps, his feelings are less comfortable. Of course much depends upon the man being sensitive or stolid, but in any case this matters little in the present instance, as the ill.u.s.tration is merely used to symbolise the mental state of Alice during the evening of her lover's absence. One moment she was clothed in the radiance of perfect security and peace; the next, and a dreadful gloom descended upon her bringing anguish and distress.

Naturally there was no physical change, but in some inexplicable way she felt that an inward light was quenched. Alice had never read St.

Teresa's "Castles of the Soul," or the explanations of that terrible saint would have given her the key to her condition.

As it was she felt as though the sun had fallen from the sky, and quailed in the dense darkness p.r.i.c.ked with feeble lights which now surrounded her. Little as she knew it, those same lights represented the sum of what experience she had gained with painful learning through many successive lives. The knowledge and attainments of Eberstein, who had reached an infinitely higher level than herself, beamed in that splendour which had been withdrawn. But what little light she possessed and what greater light he had gained were only what each could receive of The True Light "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world!"

Hitherto, Eberstein had given for her use what glory he had earned; now--since the child must learn to walk alone if it ever hopes to come to maturity--he had stood aside for the moment, so that she could make the attempt with what strength she possessed. But Alice did not know all this, and could only feel supremely wretched and forsaken.

So listless did she feel that there was no energy in her to dress for dinner. For two hours she sat in the drawing-room, already darkened by the early gloom of the short autumnal day, longing to be in the haven of her lover's arms. Her lonely soul cried aloud for human sympathy, for human protection, since the higher love seemed to have withdrawn itself, and she put forth all the longing of her being to call back Douglas to her side. But no answer came. The gloom waxed denser, the silence became more oppressive, and all the girl could do was to concentrate her mind on Christ and His saving grace. There was some comfort to be got in murmuring that holy name over and over again. She felt as though she were drowning in a bitterly salt sea under a leaden sky, and that despairing trust in the Blessed One was the spar to which she clung in the hope of rescue. And unprotected as she was for the moment, save by her intuitive faith, she felt the evil forces of the house bear down upon her shuddering soul with terrific weight. She little knew how these destroying influences were being directed by a Brother of the Shadow, and as little did she guess that he would be permitted to go so far and no farther. Knowledge of this state being a necessary ordeal would have helped her to bear it; but the ignorance which made her sufferings more acute was part of the ordeal itself. And silent, unseen, motionless, the Powers of Good watched her endurance of the test.

In the library Narvaez, in an extraordinary state of excitement for one so trained to serenity, was conversing hurriedly with his pupil. He had come over a quarter of an hour previously and was informing Enistor of the girl's defenceless state. The Adversary had withdrawn his protection, as Don Pablo knew in some mysterious way which he declined to explain to the Squire, so now was the time to put forth the dark influence of evil and make use of the girl's clairvoyant powers.

"They are untrained, it is true," said Narvaez, striving to be calm, since he knew how much depended upon perfect self-control. "But she is so pure and so powerful in her purity that when I loosen her soul from the bonds of the flesh, she will be able to reach that exalted plane where she can read the past truthfully. Information will come through little coloured by her personality. I a.s.sure you, Enistor, as in so young and innocent a girl, it is not yet particularly strong. Where is she?"

"In the drawing-room! Moping in the dark."

"Ah, she feels the absence of her guardian, and is greatly bewildered.

All the better for our purpose."

"How are you going to manage?" said the Squire anxiously. "Alice hates you, and will never submit to do anything for you."

Narvaez sneered. "But for The Adversary, I should have dominated her long ago without difficulty. Now that the protection has been withdrawn she is quite at the mercy of my superior knowledge and power. She can never oppose her will to mine, as she is ignorant and I am wise."

"You won't hurt her," said Enistor uneasily, and silently astonished with himself for giving way to such a kindly human feeling.

"No. Of course I won't," retorted the other impatiently. "I shall send her to find out what we want, and then recall her. Why she is unsupported now I cannot learn; but certainly for the moment she has been left to walk alone. This is our hour, Enistor, so let us make the best of it."

"How do you intend to act?" questioned the father tensely.

"Place that arm-chair in the middle of the room: put the lamp behind yonder screen. I shall sit here by the window where she cannot see me: you take up your position near the fire. Give me a saucer, a plate, a vase--anything."

The Squire obeyed these directions and sat down as instructed to watch the doings of Don Pablo. That gentleman, taking a red-hot coal from the fire, dropped it on a bronze saucer of Indian workmanship which Enistor had selected from amongst the ornaments on the mantelpiece. Placing this on a small table which stood near the central chair, Narvaez shook over the burning coal some special incense which he carried in a tiny golden box. At once a thick white smoke fumed upward, and the room was filled gradually with a stupefying fragrance. With the lamp behind the Chinese screen, the apartment was only faintly illuminated by the red glow of the fire, which smouldered without flames in the grate. The Spaniard moved about with an activity surprising in a man of his years, and when he had completed his preparations retreated into the darkness near the heavily curtained window. Thence his voice came low, clear and piercing to the Squire.

"I am putting out my power to draw her here. Tell her when she comes to sit in the arm-chair yonder. My influence and the scent of the incense will bring about the separation of the bodies, and she will go to the appointed place. You ask the questions, as my voice may move her to rebellion. Keep your brain pa.s.sive and I will impress upon you what I wish to ask. You have been already trained to be receptive in this way, so you know what to do."

"Yes!" breathed Enistor, sitting well back in his chair and fixing his eyes on the library door, dimly seen in the reddish glow of the fire.

Narvaez did not waste time in replying, but the Squire felt that he was now radiating a tremendous influence, which seemed to extend beyond the walls of the library and throughout the entire house. Shortly, swift unhesitating footsteps were heard, and Alice simply raced into the room, so speedily did she respond to the call. She had all her waking senses about her, and was puzzled to understand the impulse which had sent her headlong in search of her father.

"Do you want me?" she asked, with quick laboured breathing, for the oppression of the room was terrible. "Why are you in the dark? What is the matter?"

"I want to talk to you about Montrose," said Enistor softly. "Sit down in that arm-chair over there."

"About Douglas!" Alice, with a weary sigh, dropped into the central chair, near the table where the incense curled upward in faint grey spirals, not discernible in the half-light. A whiff of the scent made the girl drowsy, and closing her eyes, she rested her head on the back of the chair. The action brought her face nearer to the bronze dish, and with the next breath she inhaled a lung-ful of the burning perfume. With a choking sensation she strove to open her eyes and lean forward, but her body would not obey her will, and she rested, inert and powerless, where she was. There was a momentary struggle between spirit and matter, a sick sensation of loosened bonds, and then she found herself standing upright gazing at her motionless body lying in the chair. It was alive and breathing, for she saw the rise and fall of the breast, but she, in a similar body, stood apart from her physical vehicle, distinct, and--so far as she knew--unattached. Before she had time to grasp the situation, the library vanished, and she was environed by a restless atmosphere of colour. It was as if she was clothed with the splendour of sunset, for there was no hard-and-fast outline; no visible form: all was cloud and colour, materials waiting to be shaped by the will into something which the soul desired. The silence was like a benediction of peace. "Higher!

Higher!" said the far-away voice of her father. "Seek out the past where it is to be found. See yourself and those you know, in other times, in other climes, in other flesh." There was a pause, and then came the telephonic voice again, repeating the orders of Narvaez. "Use for the past the names by which you and those you know are called to-day. Higher! Higher!"

Alice again felt that struggle of spirit and matter, and--no longer afraid as she had been--pa.s.sed out of her second body to become conscious in a third one. Now, as she knew intuitively, she moved in the sphere of Tone, and everywhere rainbow light spoke in music, though still she wandered in a cloudy atmosphere as in the heart of a many-hued opal. Wave after wave of murmuring light rolled over her, but there was no horizon, no boundaries, no up or down. She was in a dimension about which, as Alice Enistor, she knew nothing. But her eternal Self knew that the place was familiar, as she--having stepped behind two veils of matter--knew the Eternal Self.

"Seek out the Book of Time," commanded the thin voice which directed her doings, and ghost of a sound as it was, it penetrated to her through the choral harmonies of the glorious music.

In a moment everything as it were became solid, and she felt that she had dropped again to the earth. Clothed in a larger and more majestic body than that she wore as Alice Enistor, she moved amidst familiar surroundings, knowing the landscape she moved through and the people whom she found herself amongst. Then she was aware that she was still on a higher plane and had travelled in time through five thousand years to re-live for the moment an incarnation of the past. The Book of Time, as she dimly sensed it, was not a book, as the physical brain knows a book, but a state of consciousness. At this moment, when the rainbow had vanished and the music had ceased, and--as it might be--she was living amongst the living, her father's voice came for the third time.