As the darkness deepened, a soft suffused light illumined the room—and I now noticed that it was the surface of the walls that shone in this delicate yet luminous way. I put my hand on the wall nearest to me—it was quite cold to the touch, yet bright to the eyes, and was no more fatiguing to look at than the sunshine on a landscape. I could not understand how the light was thus arranged and used, but its effect was beautiful. As I walked to and fro, looking at the various graceful and artistic objects which adorned the room, I perceived an easel, on which a picture was placed with a curtain of dark velvet drawn across it. Moved by curiosity, I drew the curtain aside,—and my heart gave a quick bound of delight,—it was an admirably painted portrait of Rafel Santoris. The grave blue eyes looked into my own,—a smile rested on the firm, handsome mouth—the whole picture spoke to me and seemed to ask 'Wherefore didst thou doubt?' I stood gazing at it for several minutes, enrapt,—realising how much even the 'counterfeit presentment' of a beloved face may mean. And then I began to think how strange it is that we never seem ready to admit the strong insistence of Nature on individuality and personality. Up at a vast height above the Earth, and looking down upon a crowd of people from the car of a balloon, or from an aeroplane, all human beings look the same—just one black mass of tiny moving units; but, in descending among them, we find every face and figure wholly different, and though all are made on the same model there are no two alike. Yet there are many who argue and maintain that though individual personality in bodies may be strongly marked, there is no individual personality in souls—ergo, that Nature thinks so little of the intelligent Spirit inhabiting a mortal form that she limits individuality to that which is subject to change and has no care for it in that which is eternal! Such an hypothesis is absurd on the face of it, since it is the Soul that gives individuality to the Body. The individual personality of Rafel Santoris, expressed even in his painted portrait, appealed to me as being that of one I had loved long and tenderly,—there was no strangeness in his features but only an adorable familiarity. Long long ago, in centuries that had proved like mere days down the vista of time, the Soul in those blue eyes had looked love into mine! I recognised their tender, half-entreating, half-commanding gaze,—I knew the little fleeting, wistful smile which said so little and yet so much—I felt that the striving, ambitious spirit of this man had sought mine as the help and completion of his own uplifting, and that I had misunderstood him and turned from him at the crucial moment when all might have been well. And I studied his picture long and earnestly, so moved by its aspect that I found myself talking to it softly as though it were a living thing.
"I wonder if I shall ever meet you again?" I murmured—"Will you come to me?—or shall I go to you? How shall we find each other? When shall I be able to tell you that I know you now to be the only Beloved!—the one centre of my life round which all other things must for evermore revolve,—the very mainspring of my best thought and action,—the god of my universe from whose love and pleasure spring the light and splendour of creation! When shall I see you again to tell you all that my heart longs to express?—when may I fold myself in your arms as a bird folds its wings in a nest, and be at peace, knowing that I have gained the summit of all ambition and desires in love's perfect union? When shall we attune our lives together in that harmonious chord which shall sound its music sweetly through eternity? When shall our Souls make a radiant ONE, through which God's power and benediction shall vibrate like living fire, creating within us all beauty, all wisdom, all courage, all supernal joy?—For this is bound to be our future—but—when?"
Moved by my own imagining, I stretched out my arms to the picture of my love, and tears filled my eyes. I was nothing but the weakest of mortals in the sudden recollection of the happiness I might have won long ago had I been wise in time!
A door opened quietly behind me, and I turned round quickly. Aselzion's messenger, Honorius, stood before me—and I greeted him with a smile, though my eyes were wet.
"Have you come to fetch me?"—I asked—"I am ready."
He inclined his head a little.
"You are not quite ready"—he said—and with the word he gave into my hands a folded garment and veil—"You must attire yourself in these. I will wait for you outside."
He retired and left me, and I quickly changed my own things for those which had been brought. They were easily put on, as they consisted simply of one long white robe of a rather heavy make of soft silk, and a white veil which covered me from head to foot. My attiring took me but a few minutes, and when all was done I touched the bell by which I had previously summoned Aselzion. Honorius entered at once—his looks were grave and preoccupied.
"If you should not return to this room,"—he said, slowly—"is there any message—any communication you would like me to convey to your friends?"
My heart gave a quick bound. There was some actual danger in store for me, then? I thought for a moment—then smiled.