"That is what the world says of God—'I will not yield till I know!' But it is as plastic clay in His hands, all the time, and it never knows!"

I was silent—and there was a pause in which no sound was heard but the movement of the water under the little boat in which he stood. Then—

"Good-night!" he said.

"Good-night!" I answered, and moved by a swift impulse, I stooped and kissed the firm hand that rested so near me, gripping the edge of the port-hole. He looked up with a sudden light in his eyes.

"Is that a sign of grace and consolation?" he asked, smiling—"Well! I am content! And I have waited so long that I can wait yet a little longer."

So speaking, he let go his hold from alongside the yacht, and in another minute had seated himself in the boat and was rowing away across the moonlit water. I watched him as every stroke of the oars widened the distance between us, half hoping that he might look back, wave his hand, or even return again—but no!—his boat soon vanished like a small black speck on the sea, and I knew myself to be left alone. Restraining with difficulty the tears that rose to my eyes, I shut the port-hole and drew its little curtain across it—then I sat down to read the letter he had left with me. It ran as follows:

Beloved,—

I call you by this name as I have always called you through many cycles of time,—it should sound upon your ears as familiarly as a note of music struck in response to another similar note in far distance. You are not satisfied with the proofs given you by your own inner consciousness, which testify to the unalterable fact that you and I are, and must be, as one,—that we have played with fate against each other, and sometimes striven to escape from each other, all in vain;—it is not enough for you to know (as you do know) that the moment our eyes met our spirits rushed together in a sudden ecstasy which, had we dared to yield to it, would have outleaped convention and made of us no more than two flames in one fire! If you are honest with yourself as I am honest with myself, you will admit that this is so,—that the emotion which overwhelmed us was reasonless, formless and wholly beyond all analysis, yet more insistent than any other force having claim on our lives. But it is not sufficient for you to realise this,—or to trace through every step of the journey you have made, the gradual leading of your soul to mine,—from that last night you passed in your own home, when every fibre of your being grew warm with the prescience of coming joy, to this present moment, even through dreams of infinite benediction in which I shared—no!—it is not sufficient for you!—you must 'know'—you must learn—you must probe into deeper mysteries, and study and suffer to the last! Well, if it must be so, it must,—and I shall rely on the eternal fitness of things to save you from your own possible rashness and bring you back to me,—for without you now I can do nothing more. I have done much—and much remains to be done—but if I am to attain, you must crown the attainment—if my ambition is to find completion, you alone can be its completeness. If you have the strength and the courage to face the ordeal through which Aselzion sends those who seek to follow his teaching, you will indeed have justified your claim to be considered higher than merest woman,—though you have risen above that level already. The lives of women generally, and of men too, are so small and sordid and self-centred, thanks to their obstinate refusal to see anything better or wider than their own immediate outlook, that it is hardly worth while considering them in the light of that deeper knowledge which teaches of the REAL life behind the seeming one. In the ordinary way of existence men and women meet and mate with very little more intelligence or thought about it than the lower animals; and the results of such meeting and mating are seen in the degenerate and dying nations of to-day. Moreover, they are content to be born for no other visible reason than to die—and no matter how often they may be told there is no such thing as death, they receive the assertion with as much indignant incredulity as the priesthood of Rome received Galileo's assurance that the earth moves round the sun. But we—you and I—who know that life, being ALL Life, CANNOT die,—ought to be wiser in our present space of time than to doubt each other's infinite capability for love and the perfect world of beauty which love creates. I do not doubt—my doubting days are past, and the whips of sorrow have lashed me into shape as well as into strength, but YOU hesitate,—because you have been rendered weak by much misunderstanding. However, it has partially comforted me to place the position fully before you, and having done this I feel that you must be free to go your own way. I do not say 'I love you!'—such a phrase from me would be merest folly, knowing that you must be mine, whether now or at the end of many more centuries. Your soul is deathless as mine is—it is eternally young, as mine is,—and the force that gives us life and love is divine and indestructible, so that for us there can be no end to the happiness which is ours to claim when we will. For the rest I leave you to decide—you will go to the House of Aselzion and perhaps you will remain there some time,—at any rate when you depart from thence you will have learned much, and you will know what is best for yourself and for me.

My beloved, I commend you to God with all my adoring soul and am

Your lover, Rafel Santoris