'How, Grace?'
'I don't know. I think there is a power about him—a fascination. Do you remember what I told you one day when we were travelling? How I looked round me—above—below—on every side, and saw nothing but misery and pain—how I could not believe in God—could not even thank Him for saving me?'
'Yes, I remember,' said Tom.
'And after that,' she went on, 'I felt, but I couldn't speak. It was all in here—burning—burning—but no words—an awful indescribable loneliness. You were all about me, loving me, helping me, caring for me so kindly, and I was like one apart—a spirit in prison. Then I saw this Brahmin-prophet. It was the evening we came in.' She spoke rapidly, and with a curious exultation, which had the strangest effect upon her listeners—for there were two now, Mrs. Lyster having joined them. 'I saw him standing in the road—such a strange figure! It frightened poor little Kit; but I—ah! I can't tell you what it was—he looked at me, and it seemed to me as if he were looking straight down into my soul, as if he knew how I felt. And yet I did not tremble. I asked him to come and see me, and he came. He sat down there. He said nothing, not a single word; but I spoke; it was as if an angel had come down and loosened my tongue, letting the burning thoughts free.'
'Did Vishnugupta understand you?' said Tom.
'He did more than understand. He explained me to myself. Listen, my beloved, and see how overpowering—how beautiful it is. We are stretching out our hands in the darkness—looking for God—weeping because He does not answer our prayers, and He is here within us. We shall part, or we shall think that we part, but it is not so. We cannot part, we meet eternally in the bosom of the Divine. But before we can know this, and enter into His peace, the self must be slain—will—desire—love of the things that are not He. Listen again! I wondered, you know, where the evil came from—pain, misery, cruelty. I know now. These are the things to which the self will grow in its darkness. But there is hope, for in the sting is the cure. Through the evil—through the bitter pain and misery—the vision is born. The poison has a heart of healing. If there were none of this misery that revolts our ignorance, the self would go on, building its palaces about it till the Divine was shut out. As it is, we grow weary at last, and we lay ourselves down at His feet. I thought it was a dream at first; but he spoke to me again, and each time he spoke the vision became clearer. He says they have known it here for thousands of years. It has been growing and fading—growing and fading; but there were always some who held it fast, and when faith was weak, and many had gone astray, and the clue to the labyrinth was in danger of being lost, then a revealer—a God-sent teacher came.'
There was a pause. Neither of her companions spoke. Mrs. Lyster was looking out before her with bewildered eyes. If this was love-making, it was the strangest she had ever heard of. Tom had covered his face with his hands. It seemed to him that she was moving further and further away from them, and he could not speak for the sorrowful aching at his heart. Then she put out her hand, and, with a smile of the most divine compassion and love, touched his arm. 'Dearest,' she said, 'I must tell you something more. They are expecting another revealer. He will be different from any who have gone before him, for the sphere will be larger. New lights have been dawning upon the nations, and new truths, forced painfully from the silence by the higher minds, are waiting to be shown to the people. He will know all these. He will be of the West by his training, of the East by his nature. He will have the science and learning of the New World, and the self-forgetting passion of the Old. For years he will be content to learn—watching and waiting for the happy moment. Then, when he is sure of himself and sure of them, he will speak—here, in this wonderful country, which has given so many wonderful things to the world, and thousands upon thousands will follow him. This is what Vishnugupta told me, and do you know what I thought? "Our prophet is here," I thought to myself. Years upon years to come, when all this dreadful strife and sore is healed, and when I, with so many, many others, who had a part in it, are laid to rest and forgotten, he will speak the words of life, and then, perhaps,' her lips parted in a yearning smile, 'he will remember his love of old time, and these few days of love and happiness, that his love made for her, before——'
'Hush! Grace! Hush!' cried the poor boy passionately. 'It is you I want——' Mrs. Lyster turned away weeping, and he broke into a piteous entreaty that Grace would unsay her cruel words. But in a moment the words died away upon his lips, and he was gazing at her with ashy face and horror-stricken eyes. For the expression they so much dreaded—the look of fear and piteous distress—had come back into her face. In the next moment he had recovered his presence of mind, and was stooping over her to ask if she wanted anything. 'No,' she said, trying to smile. 'I am tired;' and then with white lips and eyes, whose sorrowful yearning will haunt him to the end of his days, she besought him to leave her alone.