“Oh, it is only a legend!” and the Princess smiled, turning her dark eyes with a bewitching languor on Gervase, who, for some reason or other which he could not explain, felt as if he were walking in a dream on the edge of a deep chasm of nothingness, into which he must presently sink to utter destruction. “All these old histories happened so long ago that they are nothing but myths now to the present generation.”
“Time does not rob any incident of its interest to me,” said Dr. Dean. “Ages hence Queen Victoria will be as much a doubtful potentate as King Lud. To the wise student of things there is no time and no distance. All history from the very beginning is like a wonderful chain in which no link is ever really broken, and in which every part fits closely to the other part,—though why the chain should exist at all is a mystery we cannot solve. Yet I am quite certain that even our late friend Araxes has his connection with the present, if only for the reason that he lived in the past.”
“How do you argue out that theory!” asked Gervase with sudden interest.
“How do you argue it? The question is, how can you argue at all about anything that is so plain and demonstrated a fact? The doctrine of evolution proves it. Everything that we were once has its part in us now. Suppose, if you like, that we were originally no more than shells on the shore,—some remnant of the nature of the shell must be in us at this moment. Nothing is lost,—nothing is wasted,—not even a thought. I carry my theories very far,” pursued the Doctor, looking keenly from one to the other of his silent companions as they walked beside him through a long corridor towards the Red Saloon, which could be seen, brilliantly lit up and thronged with people. “Very far indeed, especially in regard to matters of love. I maintain that if it is decreed that the soul of a man and the soul of a woman must meet,—must rush together,—not all the forces of the universe can hinder them; aye, even if they were, for some conventional cause or circumstance themselves reluctant to consummate their destiny, it would nevertheless, despite them, be consummated. For mark you,—in some form or other they have rushed together before! Whether as flames in the air, or twining leaves on a tree, or flowers in a field, they have felt the sweetness and fitness of each other’s being in former lives,—and the craving sense of that sweetness and fitness can never be done away with,—never! Not as long as this present universe lasts! It is a terrible thing,” continued the Doctor in a lower tone, “a terrible fatality,—the desire of love. In some cases it is a curse; in others, a divine and priceless blessing. The results depend entirely on the temperaments of the human creatures possessed by its fever. When it kindles, rises and burns towards Heaven in a steady flame of ever-brightening purity and faith, then it makes marriage the most perfect union on earth,—the sweetest and most blessed companionship; but when it is a mere gust of fire, bright and fierce as the sudden leaping light of a volcano, then it withers everything at a touch,—faith, honor, truth,—and dies into dull ashes in which no spark remains to warm or inspire man’s higher nature. Better death than such a love,—for it works misery on earth; but who can tell what horrors it may not create Hereafter!”
The Princess looked at him with a strange, weird gleam in her dark eyes.
“You are right,” she said. “It is just the Hereafter that men never think of. I am glad you, at least, acknowledge the truth of the life beyond death.”
“I am bound to acknowledge it,” returned the Doctor; “inasmuch as I know it exists.”
Gervase glanced at him with a smile, in which there was something of contempt.
“You are very much behind the age, Doctor,” he remarked lightly.
“Very much behind indeed,” agreed Dr. Dean composedly. “The age rushes on too rapidly for me, and gives no time to the consideration of things by the way. I stop,—I take breathing space in which to think; life without thought is madness, and I desire to have no part in a mad age.”