“I will say it if you like,” she answered. “But why should I? I have nothing to forgive!”
“Ah, you will not see,—you cannot understand——”
“I see and understand perfectly!” she said, quickly. “But, if I live, my life remains my own—if I die, it will be your affair—but there can be no cause for grudge either way!”
“Diana,” he repeated, earnestly—“Say just this—‘Féodor, I forgive you!’”
She smiled—a strange little smile of pity and pride commingled, and stretched out both hands to him. To her surprise he knelt before her and kissed them.
“Féodor, I forgive you!” she said, very sweetly, in the penetrating accents which were so exclusively her own.—“Now, Magician, get to your work quickly! Apollonius of Tyana and Paracelsus were only children playing on the shores of science compared to you! When you are ready, I am!”
He sprang up from his kneeling attitude, and for a moment looked about him as one half afraid and uncertain. His amazing piece of mechanism, the great Wheel, was revolving slowly and ever more slowly, for outside in the heavens the sun had sunk, and the massed light within the laboratory’s crystal dome was becoming less and less dazzling. Astonishing reflections of prismatic colour were gathered in the dark water below the Wheel, as though millions of broken rainbows had been mixed with its mysterious blackness. Quietly Diana waited, her white-robed figure contrasting singularly with all the fire-glow which enveloped her in its burning lustre,—and her heart beat scarcely one pulse the quicker when Dimitrius approached her, holding with extreme care a small but massive crystal cup. It was he who trembled, not she, as she looked at him inquiringly. He spoke, striving to steady his voice to its usual even tone of composure.
“This cup,” he said—“if it contains anything, contains the true elixir for which all scientists have searched through countless ages. They failed, because they never prepared the cells of the human body to receive it. I have done all this preparatory work with you, and I have done it more successfully than I ever hoped. Every tiniest cell or group of cells that goes to form your composition as a human entity is now ready to absorb this distillation of the particles which generate and shape existence. This is the Sacramental Cup of Life! It is what early mystics dreamed of as the Holy Grail. Do not think that I blaspheme!—no!—I seek to show the world what Science can give it of true and positive communion with the mind of God! The elements that commingle to make this Universe and all that is therein, are the real ‘bread and wine’ of God’s love!—and whoever can and will absorb such food may well ‘preserve body and soul unto everlasting life.’ Such is the great union of Spirit with Matter—such is the truth after which the Churches have been blindly groping in their symbolic ‘holy communion’ feebly materialised in ‘bread and wine’ as God’s ‘body and blood.’ But the actual ‘body and blood’ of the Divine are the ever-changing but never destructible elements of all positive Life and Consciousness. And you are prepared to receive them.”
A thrill of strange awe ran through Diana as she heard. His reasoning was profound, yet lucid,—it was true enough, she thought; that God,—that is to say, the everlasting spirit of creative power,—is everywhere and in everything,—yet to the average mind it never occurs to inquire deeply as to the subtle elements wherewith Divine Intelligence causes this “everywhere” and “everything” to be made. She remained silent, her eyes fixed on the crystal cup, knowing that for her it held destiny.
“You are prepared,” resumed Dimitrius. “I have left nothing undone. And yet—you are but woman——”