“Never! Those who enter the Perfect Glory return no more to an imperfect light.”
El-Râmi paused—he was arranging other questions to ask, when her next words startled him—
“Some one called me by my name,”—she said—“Tenderly and softly, as though it were a name beloved. I heard the voice—I could not answer—but I heard it—and I know that some one loves me. The sense of love is sweet, and makes your dreary world seem fair!”
El-Râmi’s heart began to beat violently—the voice of Féraz had reached her in her trance then after all! And she remembered it!—more than this—it had carried a vague emotion of love to that vagrant and ethereal essence which he called her “soul” but which he had his doubts of all the while. For he was unable to convince himself positively of any such thing as “Soul”;—all emotions, even of the most divinely transcendent nature, he was disposed to set down to the action of brain merely. But he was scientist enough to know that the brain must gather its ideas from something,—something either external or internal,—even such a vague thing as an Idea cannot spring out of blank Chaos. And this was what especially puzzled him in his experiment with the girl Lilith—for, ever since he had placed her in the “life-in-death” condition she was, he had been careful to avoid impressing any of his own thoughts or ideas upon her. And, as a matter of fact, all she said about God, or about a present or a future state, was precisely the reverse of what he himself argued;—the question therefore remained—From Where and How did she get her knowledge? She had been a mere pretty, ignorant, half-barbaric Arab child, when she died (according to natural law), and, during the six years she had lived (by scientific law) in her strange trance, her brain had been absolutely unconscious of all external impressions, while of internal she could have none, beyond the memories of her childhood. Yet,—she had grown beautiful beyond the beauty of mortals, and she spoke of things beyond all mortal comprehension. The riddle of her physical and mental development seemed unanswerable,—it was the wonder, the puzzle, the difficulty, the delight of all El-Râmi’s hours. But now there was mischief done. She spoke of love,—not divine impersonal love, as was her wont,—but love that touched her own existence with a vaguely pleasing emotion. A voice had reached her that never should have been allowed to penetrate her spiritual solitude, and realising this, a sullen anger smouldered in El-Râmi’s mind. He strove to consider Zaroba’s fault and Féraz’s folly with all the leniency, forbearance, and forgiveness possible, and yet the strange restlessness within him gave him no peace. What should be done? What could be answered to those wistful words—“The sense of love is sweet, and makes your dreary world seem fair”?
He pondered on the matter, vaguely uneasy and dissatisfied. He, and he alone, was the master of Lilith,—he commanded and she obeyed,—but would it be always thus? The doubt turned his blood cold,—suppose she escaped him now, after all his studies and calculations! He resolved he would ask her no more questions that night, and very gently he released the little slender hands he held.
“Go, Lilith!” he said softly—“This world, as you say, is dreary—I will not keep you longer in its gloom—go hence and rest.”
“Rest?” sighed Lilith inquiringly—“Where?”
He bent above her, and touched her loose gold locks almost caressingly.
“Where you choose!”
“Nay, that I may not!” murmured Lilith sadly. “I have no choice—I must obey the Master’s will.”