"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 passage, 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 massive 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 pass 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 casement, 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 assured 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 fagged 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.