"One day you shall learn," he answered, calmly.
"You amaze me. Speak openly to me, Forrester, and not in these dark enigmas. I can bear to hear."
"Can you bear to suffer?" he asked.
"I can—I think I can," I replied, shrinking at my heart from the ordeal I invited. "I have suffered that which I should once have thought utterly fabulous, and beyond human endurance."
"I know it. But endurance has its limits. The earthly can bear only that which is of the earth—test them with sufferings that look out beyond this world into the darkness of eternity, and they perish. The trial is not in those things that are dated, bounded, and finite: it is where speculation can not reach nor reason avail us, where human knowledge and human strength are blind and idle, that the trial of that suffering begins, which is akin to the penalties of immortal spirits—a beginning without an end."
"I do not understand you," I answered.
"You will understand me, however, when the hour arrives." Then stopping short, he whispered, "they are observing us; this is not the place for such a theme. We shall meet again, when you shall be satisfied."
"When?"
"Soon—I fear too soon. No matter—we shall meet, and you shall be satisfied."
He rose and left the room.