I stood gazing at the frowning portal with a sense of utter loneliness and desolation,--the quick, resistless impulse that had fired me to make the journey and which, as it were, had driven me along by its own impetus, suddenly died away into a dreary consciousness of inadequateness and folly on my own part,--and I began to reproach myself for yielding so utterly to the casual influence of one who, after all, must in a reasonable way be considered a stranger. For what was Rafel Santoris to me? Merely an old college friend of the man who for a fortnight had been my host, and with whom he chanced to renew acquaintanceship during a yachting tour. Anything more simple and utterly commonplace never occurred,--yet, here was I full of strange impressions and visions, which were possibly only the result of clever hypnotism, practised on me because the hypnotist had possibly discovered in my temperament some suitable 'subject' matter for an essay of his skill. And I had so readily succ.u.mbed to his influence as to make a journey of hundreds of miles to a place I had never heard of before on the chance of seeing a man of whom I knew nothing!--except--that, according to what Rafel Santoris had said of him, he was the follower of a great psychic Teacher whom once I had known.

Such doubtful and darkening thoughts as these, chasing one another rapidly through my brain, made me severely accuse myself of rash and unpardonable folly in all I had done or was doing,--and I was almost on the point of turning away and retracing my steps, when a sudden ray of light, not of the sun, struck itself sharply as it were before my eyes and hurt them with its blinding glitter. It was like a whip of fire lashing my hesitating mind, and it startled me into instant action.

Without pausing further to think what I was about, I went straight up to the entrance of the Chateau and pulled at the iron chain. The gates swung open at once and swiftly, without sound--and I stepped into the dark pa.s.sage within--whereupon they as noiselessly closed again behind me. There was no going back now,--and nerving myself to resolution, I walked quickly on through what was evidently a long corridor with a lofty arched roof of ma.s.sive stone; it was dark and cool and refreshing after the great heat outside, and I saw a faint light at the end towards which I made my way. The light widened as I drew near, and an exclamation of relief and pleasure escaped me as I suddenly found myself in a picturesque quadrangle, divided into fair green lawns and parterres of flowers. Straight opposite me as I approached, a richly carved double oaken door stood wide open, enabling me to look into a vast circular domed hall, in the centre of which a fountain sent up tall silver columns of spray which fell again with a tinkling musical splash into a sunken pool bordered with white marble, where delicate pale blue water-lilies floated on the surface of the water. Enchanted by this glimpse of loveliness, I went straight on and entered without seeking the right of admission,--and then stood looking about me in wonder and admiration. If this was the House of Aselzion, where such difficult lessons had to be learned and such trying ordeals had to be faced, it certainly did not seem like a house of penance and mortification but rather of luxury. Exquisite white marble statues were set around the hall in various niches between banked-up ma.s.ses of roses and other blossoms--many of them perfect copies of the cla.s.sic models, and all expressing either strength and resolution, or beauty and repose. And most wonderful of all was the light, that poured in from the high dome--I could have said with truth that it was like that 'light which never was on sea or land.' It was not the light of the sun, but something more softened and more intense, and was totally indescribable.

Fascinated by the restful charm of my surroundings, I seated myself on a marble bench near the fountain and watched the sparkle of the water as it rose in rainbow radiance and fell again into the darker shadows of the pool,--and I had for a moment lost myself in a kind of waking dream,--so that I started with a shock of something like terror when I suddenly perceived a figure approaching me,--that of a man, clothed in white garments fashioned somewhat after the monastic type, yet hardly to be called a monk's dress, though he wore a sort of hood or cowl pulled partially over his face. My heart almost stopped beating and I could scarcely breathe for nervous fear as he came towards me with an absolutely noiseless tread,--he appeared to be young, and his eyes, dark and luminous, looked at me kindly and, as I fancied, with a touch of pity.

"You are seeking the Master?" he enquired, in a gentle voice--"He has instructed me to receive you, and when you have rested for an hour, to take you to his presence."

I had risen as he spoke, and his quiet manner helped me to recover myself a little.

"I am not tired,"--I answered--"I could go to him at once--"

He smiled.

"That is not possible!" he said--"He is not ready. If you will come to the apartment allotted to you I am sure you will be glad of some repose. May I ask you to follow me?"

He was perfectly courteous in demeanour, and yet there was a certain impressive authority about him which silently impelled obedience. I had nothing further to demand or to suggest, and I followed him at once. He preceded me out of the domed hall into a long stone pa.s.sage, where every sign of luxury, beauty or comfort disappeared in cold vastness, and where at every few steps large white boards with the word 'Silence!' printed upon them in prominent black letters confronted the eyes. The way we had to go seemed long and dreary and dungeon-like, but presently we turned towards an opening where the sun shone through, and my guide ascended a steep flight of stone stairs, at the top of which was a ma.s.sive door of oak, heavily clamped with iron. Taking a key from his girdle, he unlocked this door, and throwing it open, signed to me to pa.s.s in. I did so, and found myself in a plain stone-walled room with a vaulted roof, and one very large, lofty, uncurtained window which looked out upon the sea and sheer down the perpendicular face of the rock on which the Chateau d'Aselzion was built. The furniture consisted of one small camp bedstead, a table, and two easy chairs, a piece of rough matting on the floor near the bed, and a hanging cupboard for clothes. A well-fitted bathroom adjoined this apartment, but beyond this there was nothing of modern comfort and certainly no touch of luxury. I moved instinctively to the window to look out at the sea,--and then turned to thank my guide for his escort, but he had gone. Thrilled with a sudden alarm, I ran to the door--it was locked! I was a prisoner! I stood breathless and amazed;--then a wave of mingled indignation and terror swept over me. How dared these people restrain my liberty? I looked everywhere round the room for a bell or some means of communication by which I could let them know my mind--but there was nothing to help me. I went to the window again, and finding it was like a French cas.e.m.e.nt, merely latched in the centre, I quickly unfastened and threw it open. The scent of the sea rushed at me with a delicious freshness, reminding me of Loch Scavaig and the 'Dream'--and I leaned out, looking longingly over the wide expanse of glittering water just now broken into little crests of foam by a rising breeze. Then I saw that my room was a kind of turret chamber, projecting itself sheer over a great wall of rock which evidently had its base in the bed of the ocean. There was no escape for me that way, even if I had sought it. I drew back from the window and paced round and round my room like a trapped animal--angry with myself for having ventured into such a place, and forgetting entirely my previous determination to go through all that might happen to me with patience and unflinching nerve.

Presently I sat down on my narrow camp bed and tried to calm myself.

After all, what was the use of my anger or excitement? I had come to the House of Aselzion of my own wish and will,--and so far I had endured nothing difficult. Apparently Aselzion was willing to receive me in his own good time--and I had only to wait the course of events.

Gradually my blood cooled, and in a few minutes I found myself smiling at my own absurdly useless indignation. True, I was locked up in my own room like a naughty child, but did it matter so very much? I a.s.sured myself it did not matter at all,--and as I accustomed my mind to this conviction I became perfectly composed and quite at home in my strange surroundings. I took off my hat and cloak and put them by--then I went into the bathroom and refreshed my face with delicious splashes of cold water. The bathroom possessed a full-length mirror fitted into the wall, a fact which rather amused me, as I felt it must have been there always and could not have been put up specially for me, so that it would seem these mystic 'Brothers' were not without some personal vanity. I surveyed myself in it with surprise as I took down my hair and twisted it up again more tidily, for I had expected to look f.a.gged and tired, whereas my face presented a smiling freshness which was unexpected and astonishing to myself. The plain black dress I wore was dusty with travel--and I shook it as free as I could from railway grimness, feeling that it was scarcely the attire I should have chosen for an audience of Aselzion.

"However,"--I said to myself--"if he has me locked up like this, and gives me no chance of sending for my luggage at the inn, I can only submit and make the best of it."

And returning from the bathroom to the bedroom, I again looked out of my lofty window across the sea. As I did so, leaning a little over the ledge, something soft and velvety touched my hand;--it was a red rose clambering up the turret just within my reach. Its opening petals lifted themselves towards me like sweet lips turned up for kisses, and I was for a moment startled, for I could have sworn that no rose of any kind was there when I first looked out. 'One rose from all the roses in Heaven!' Where had I heard those words? And what did they signify?

Then--I remembered! Carefully and with extreme tenderness, I bent over that beautiful, appealing flower:

"I will not gather you!"--I whispered, following the drift of my own dreaming fancy--"If you are a message--and I think you are I--stay there as long as you can and talk to me! I shall understand!"

And so for a while we made silent friends with each other till I might have said with the poet--'The soul of the rose went into my blood.' At any rate something keen, fine and subtle stole over my senses, moving me to an intense delight in merely being alive. I forgot that I was in a strange place among strange men,--I forgot that I was to all intents and purposes a prisoner--I forgot everything except that I lived, and that life was ecstasy!

I had no very exact idea of the time,--my watch had stopped. But the afternoon light was deepening, and long lines of soft amber and crimson in the sky were beginning to spread a radiant path for the descent of the sun. While I still remained at the window I suddenly heard the rise and swell of deep organ music, solemn and sonorous; it was as though the waves of the sea had set themselves to song. Some instinct then told me there was someone in the room,--and I turned round quickly to find my former guide in the white garments standing silently behind me, waiting. I had intended to complain at once of the way in which I had been imprisoned as though I were a criminal--but at sight of his grave, composed figure I lost all my hardihood and could say nothing. I merely stood still, attendant on his pleasure. His dark eyes, gleaming from under his white cowl, looked at me with a searching enquiry as though he expected me to speak, but as I continued to keep silence, he smiled.

"You are very patient!" he said, quietly--"And that is well! The Master awaits you."

A tremor ran through me, and my heart began to beat violently. I was to have my wilful desires granted, then! I was actually to see and speak with the man to whom Rafel Santoris owed his prolonged youth and power, and under whose training he had pa.s.sed through an ordeal which had taught him some of the deepest mysteries of life! The result of my own wishes seemed now so terrifying to me that I could not have uttered a word had I tried, I followed my escort in absolute silence;--once in my nervous agitation I slipped on the stone staircase and nearly fell,--he at once caught me by the hand and supported me, and the kindness and gentle strength of his touch renewed my courage. His wonderful eyes looked steadily into mine.

"Do not be afraid!" he said, in a low tone--"There is really nothing to fear!"

We pa.s.sed the domed hall and its sparkling fountain, and in two or three minutes came to a deep archway veiled by a portiere of some rich stuff woven in russet brown and gold,--this curtain my guide threw back noiselessly, showing a closed door. Here he came to a standstill and waited--I waited with him, trying to be calm, though my mind was in a perfect tumult of expectation mingled with doubt and dread,--that closed door seemed to me to conceal some marvellous secret with which my whole future life and destiny were likely to be involved. Suddenly it opened,--I saw a beautiful octagonal room, richly furnished, with the walls lined, so it appeared, from floor to ceiling with books,--one or two great stands and vases of flowers made flashes of colour among the shadows, and a quick upward glance showed me that the ceiling was painted in fresco, then my guide signed to me to enter.

"The Master will be with you in a moment,"--he said--"Please sit down"--here he gave me an encouraging smile--"You are a little nervous--try and compose yourself! You need not be at all anxious or frightened!"

I tried to smile in response, but I felt far more ready to weep. I was possessed by a sudden hopeless and helpless depression which I could not overcome. My guide went away at once, and the door closed after him in the same mysteriously silent fashion in which it had opened. I was left to myself,--and I sat down on one of the numerous deep easy chairs which were placed about the room, trying hard to force myself into at least the semblance of quietude. But, after all, what was the use of even a.s.suming composure when the man I had come to meet probably had the power to gauge the whole gamut of a human being's emotion at a moment's notice? Instinctively I pressed my hand against my heart and felt the letter my 'lover' had given me--surely that was no dream?

I drew a long breath like a sigh, and turned my eyes towards the window, which was set in a sort of double arch of stone, and which showed me a garden stretching far away from the edges of soft lawns and flower borders into a picturesque vista of woodland and hill. A warmth of rosy light illumined the fair scene, indicating that the glory of the sunset had begun. Impulsively I rose to go and look out--then stopped--checked and held back by a swift compelling awe--I was no longer alone. I was confronted by the tall commanding figure of a man wearing the same white garments as those of my guide,--a man whose singular beauty and dignity of aspect would have enforced admiration from even the most callous and un.o.bservant--and I knew that I was truly at last in the presence of Aselzion. Overpowered by this certainty, I could not speak--I could only look and wonder as he drew near me. His cowl was thrown back, fully displaying his fine intellectual head--his eyes, deep blue and full of light, studied my face with a keen scrutiny which I could FEEL as though it were a searching ray burning into every nook and cranny of my heart and soul. The blood rushed to my cheeks in a warm wave--then suddenly rallying my forces I returned him glance for glance. Thus we moved, each on our own lines of spiritual attraction, closer together; till presently a slight smile brightened the gravity of his handsome features, and he extended both hands to me.

"You are welcome!" he said, in a voice that expressed the most perfect music of human speech--"Rash and undisciplined as you are, you are welcome!"

Timidly I laid my hands in his, grateful for the warm, strong clasp he gave them,--then, all at once, hardly knowing how it happened, I sank on my knees as before some saint or king, silently seeking his blessing. There was a moment's deep stillness,--and he laid his hands on my bowed head.

"Poor child!" he said, gently--"You have adventured far for love and life!--it will be hard if you should fail! May all the powers of G.o.d and Nature help you!"

This said, he raised me with an infinitely courteous kindness, and placed a chair for me near a ma.s.sive table-desk on which there were many papers--some neatly tied up and labelled,--others lying about in apparent confusion--and when we were both seated he began conversation in the simplest and easiest fashion.

"You know, of course, that I have been prepared for your arrival here,"--he said--"by one of my students, Rafel Santoris. He has been seeking you for a long time, but now he has found you he is hardly better off--for you are a rebellious child and unwilling to recognise him--is it not so?"

I felt a little more courageous now, and answered him at once.

"I am not unwilling to recognise any true thing," I said--"But I do not wish to be deceived--or to deceive myself."

He smiled.

"Do you not? How do you know that you have not been deceiving yourself ever since your gradual evolvement from subconscious into conscious life? Nature has not deceived you--Nature always takes herself seriously--but you--have you not tried in various moods or phases of existence, to do something cleverer than Nature?--to more or less outwit her as it were? Come, come!--don't look so puzzled about it!--you have only done what all so-called 'reasonable' human beings do, and think themselves justified in doing. But now, in your present state,--which is an advancement, and not a retrogression,--you have begun to gain a little wider knowledge, with a little deeper humility--and I am inclined to have great patience with you!"

I raised my eyes and was rea.s.sured by his kindly glance.

"Now, to begin with,"--he went on--"you should know at once that we do not receive women here. It is against our rule and Order. We are not prepared for them,--we do not want them. They are never more than HALF souls!"

My heart gave an indignant bound,--but I held my peace. He looked straight at me, while with one hand he put together a few stray papers on his desk.

"Well, why do you not give me the obvious answer?" he queried--"Why do you not say that if women are half souls, men are the same,--and that the two halves must conjoin to make one? Foolish child!--you need not burn with suppressed offence at what sounds a slighting description of your s.e.x--it is not meant as such. You ARE half souls,--and the chief trouble with you is that you seldom have the sense to see it, or to make any endeavour to form the perfect and indivisible union,--a sacred task which is left in your hands. Nature is for ever working to bring the right halves together,--man is for ever striving to scatter them apart--and though it all comes right at the last, as it must, there is no need for delay involving either months or centuries. You women were meant to be the angels of salvation, but instead of this you are the ruin of your own 'ideals.'"

I could offer no contradiction to this, for I felt it to be true.

"As I have just said," he went on--"this is no place for women. The mere idea that you should imagine yourself, capable of submitting to the ordeal of a student here is, on the face of it, incredible. Only for Rafel's sake have I consented to see you and explain to you how impossible it is that you should remain--"

I interrupted him.

"I MUST remain!" I said, firmly. "Do with me whatever you like--put me in a cell and keep me a prisoner,--give me any hardship to endure and I will endure it--but do not turn me away without teaching me something of your peace and power--the peace and power which Rafel possesses, and which I too must possess if I would help him and be all in all to him--"

Here I paused, overcome by my own emotion. Aselzion looked full at me.

"That is your desire?--to help him and to be all in all to him?" he said--"Why did you not realise this ages ago? And even now you have wavered in the allegiance you owe to him--you have doubted him, though all your inward instincts tell you that he is your soul's true mate, and that your own heart beats towards him like a bird in a cage beating against the bars towards liberty!"

I was silent. My fate seemed in a balance,--but I left it to Aselzion, who, if his power meant anything, could read my thoughts better than I could express them. He rose from his desk and paced slowly up and down, absorbed in meditation. Presently he stopped abruptly in front of me.

"If you stay here," he said--"you must understand what it means. It means that you must dwell as one apart in your own room, entirely alone except when summoned to receive instruction--your meals will be served there--and you will feel like a criminal undergoing punishment rather than enlightenment--and you may speak to no one unless spoken to first.

Moreover"--he interrupted himself and beckoned me to follow him into another room adjoining the one we were in. Here, leading me to a window, he showed me a very different view from the sunlit landscape and garden I had lately looked upon,--a dismal square of rank gra.s.s in which stood a number of black crosses.

"These do not mark deaths,"--he said--"but failures! Failures--not in a worldly sense--but failures in making of life the eternal and creative thing it is--eternal HERE and now,--as long as we shall choose! Do you seek to be one of them?"

"No,"--I answered, quietly--"I shall not fail!"

He gave a slight, impatient sigh.

"So they all said--they whose records are here"--and he pointed to the crosses with an impressive gesture--"Some of the men who have thus left their mark with us, are at this moment among the world's most brilliant and successful personalities--wealthy, and in great social request,--and only they themselves know where the canker lies--only they are aware of their own futility,--and they live, knowing that their life must lead into other lives, and dreading that inevitable Change which is bound by law to bring them into whatever position they have chiefly sought!"

His voice was grave and compa.s.sionate, and a faint tremor of fear ran through me.