It was yet a long time before they were berthed, and the landing-bridges put in place, and Maud did not know how his heart, too, had leaped when he saw them standing on the deck. To him, also, had come, as to her, that first unpremeditated leap, when it was to her that he leaped. Then with his conscious self he saw her brother, him whom he longed to save from mortal error.
But the flame of human love, in spite of himself, had been the first to blaze.
CHAPTER IV.
BERTIE COCHRANE had taken them straight across by ferry to their house in Long Island, near Port Washington, had seen them comfortably installed, and returned in the evening to his flat in town. As regards Thurso, the spiritual conflict of the Divine and Infinite against all that was mortal and mistaken had begun, and of the ultimate issue of that he had no doubts whatever. But there was another conflict before him, more difficult than that—a conflict of things that were all good, but yet seemed to be unreconcilable; and as he sat now, after eating the one dish of vegetables which was his dinner, he felt torn by these fine conflicting forces.
For to-morrow, at the joint request of Thurso and his sister, he was going down to stay with them. That arrangement he could not refuse. Since they were so kind as to ask him, it was better in every way, as regards the cure he was undertaking, to do so. Thus, all day and every day he would see and be with the girl whom he loved with all the intensity of his jubilant and vital soul. Yet, since he would be there only as a healer, and since, except as a healer, he would never have been there, he knew that he must entirely swamp and drown all his private concerns. He must say no word, make no sign. Even that was not enough, he feared. He must school himself to feel no longing. His love itself must be drowned—that strong and beautiful thing—while he was there; for he would be there only as one who could bring, and had promised to bring, light to this man who was obscured by error. That would be the sole reason for his presence there, and it was worth not a moment of further debate or argument. And as he sat here now, he wondered if he was strong enough to do what he knew he must do, or whether, even at the eleventh hour, it was better to refuse to go to Long Island at all, but send someone else. On the other hand, he had himself promised to cure Thurso. He and his sister had come from England on that express understanding and under promise. But would it not be better to break that rather than lead himself into the temptation of using for his own ends the opportunity that had been given to him, and accepted by him, of demonstrating the eternal truth which was more real than any human love?
He knew, too, the hourly difficulties that his position would entail. Lady Maud thirsted for more knowledge about the truth which she already believed, and it would be he, naturally, who would talk to her about it, sitting opposite her, and seeing the glowing light of the knowledge that was being unveiled in her eyes. And yet all the time he must keep his thoughts away from her—see nothing, know nothing, except what he taught her. Not a thought could be spared to anything else; he would be there to heal, and while he healed all that was his belonged to two persons only—his Master and his patient.
He fixed his mind on this till it all acquiesced, and not only all open revolt, but all covert rebellion and dissent ceased. And the moment that was done, even as, without apparent reason, a sudden surge of water in a calm sea sets the weeds waving and submerges rocks, so from the unplumbed abyss of Love a wave swept softly and hugely over his doubts and drynesses, covering them with the message from the infinite sea. What had all his doubt and rebellion been about? He did not know.
The cold outside was intense; it had come on to freeze more sharply than ever at sunset, but he got up and set his window open. The aid that gave him in the work that lay before him now was adventitious only, but he found it easier to detach himself from the myriad distractions of mortal mind if, instead of breathing the close atmosphere of a room that was full of human associations, the taintless air of out of doors, of night and of cold, came in upon him. Very possibly that feeling itself was a claim of mortal mind, but it was better to yield to such a claim when it was clearly innocent, if it told him that the realisation of truth was thereby made more complete to his sense, than to waste energy in fighting it. And then, as he had done before when he went to the bedside of Sandie Mackenzie, he called his thoughts home. Thoughts of the day and the sea, of the sunshine, and the windless frost and the virgin snow, came flocking back, and went to sleep. Other thoughts, a little more laggard, a little less willing to rest, had to obey also: he had to forget the book he had been reading during his dinner, the swift hour of skating he had enjoyed after he came back to town, the friend he had met and talked with in the street. And another thought more wide-awake yet had to be put to sleep (and, if possible, be strangled as it was sleeping)—namely, his strong physical disgust for a man who, through sheer weakness and self-indulgence, had allowed himself to get into the state in which he had found his patient: that slack lip, that sallow face, that dull, stale eye, the thinning, whitening hair, were like some voluntary and ghastly disfigurement, as if Thurso had striven with his own hands to deface and render hideous his own body, and had succeeded so well that to Cochrane this morning he had been scarcely recognisable. But all this had to sleep; all his disgust had to be done away with. You could not heal a leper by shuddering at his sores.
Slowly and with conscious effort that was done, but there was still one soaring thought abroad, stronger of wing, harder to recall than any. Maud, too, had to be called home (and the irony of the phrase struck him). Her beauty, her incomparable charm, her serene, splendid bravery with her brother, and his love for her, must now be all non-existent for him. She must cease—all thought of her must cease.