The Everlasting Arms Part 21

d.i.c.k, whose purpose in coming to the seance was not to take part in a fiasco, grew impatient. In his state of mind he felt he had wasted both money and time. It was true he had seen and heard what he could not explain, but it amounted to nothing. Everything seemed silly beyond words. There was nothing convincing in anything, and it was all artificial.

"I should like to ask a question," he ventured at length.

"Go ahead," said a voice, which seemed to come from the ceiling.

"I should like to ask this: why is it that you, who have solved the great secret of death, should, now you are permitted to come back and speak to those of us who haven't, talk such horrible drivel?"

"Hear! hear!" a.s.sented a member of the circle.

"Oh, it's this way," answered the spirit: "every one of you sitting here have your attendant spirits. If you are intellectual, intellectual spirits attend you and come to talk to you, but as you are not they just crack silly jokes."

There was laughter at this, not only from the sitters, but among the spirits, of which the room, by this time, seemed to be full.

"That's not bad," replied d.i.c.k. "One might think you'd said that before, but as it happens we are not all fools, and I personally would like something more sensible. This is a time when thousands of hearts are breaking," he added.

"What would you like to know?"

It was another voice that spoke now--a sweeter and more refined voice, and might have belonged to a woman.

"I would like to know if it is true that each of us have attendant spirits, as one of you said just now?"

"Yes; that is true."

"You mean guardian angels?"

"Yes; if you like to call them that. But they are not all guardian angels. There are spirits who try to do harm, as well as those who try to guard and to save."

"Are they here now?"

"Yes; they are here now. I can see one behind you at this moment."

The atmosphere of the room had suddenly changed. It seemed as though something solemn and elevating had entered and driven away the frivolous, chattering presences which had filled the room. A hush had fallen upon the sitters too, and all ears seemed to be listening eagerly.

"You say you can see a spirit behind me now?"

"Yes."

"Tell me, is it a good spirit or a bad one?"

"I do not know. The face is hidden."

"But surely you can cause the face to be seen. I am anxious to learn--to know."

"I think I can tell directly. Wait."

There was a silence for perhaps ten seconds; then the voice spoke again.

"The spirit will not show its face," it said, "but it is always with you. It never leaves you night nor day."

"Why does it not leave me?"

"I cannot tell; I do not know."

"Tell me," persisted d.i.c.k, "you do not seem like the other spirits who have been here--if they are spirits," he added in an undertone. "Can you not find out if I am watched over for any particular purpose?"

"Yes, yes, I can. I can see now. It is a guardian angel, and she loves you."

"She loves me--why does she love me?"

"When she was alive she loved you. I think you were engaged. But she died, and you never married her. But she is always watching over you--trying to help you. Were you ever engaged to anyone who died?"

"That is surely a leading question," was d.i.c.k's retort. "Is that all you can tell me?"

"That is all, except that you have enemies, one in particular, who is trying to do you harm, and your guardian angel is always near you, seeking to protect you. Have you an enemy?"

"Possibly--I don't know. Is that enemy a man or a woman?"

"I cannot tell. Everything is becoming hazy and dim. I am not a spirit of the highest order. There, everything is blank to me now."

After this the seance continued for some time, but as far as d.i.c.k was concerned, it had but little definite interest. Many things took place which he could not explain, but to him they meant nothing. They might have been caused by spirits, but then again they might have been the result of trickery. Nothing was clear to him except the one outstanding fact that no light had been thrown on the problem of his life. He wanted some explanation of the wonderful apparition which had so affected his life, and he found none. For that matter, although the spirit world had been demonstrated to him, he had no more conviction about the spirit world after the seance than he had before. All the same, he could not help believing, not because of the seance, but almost in spite of it, that a presence was constantly near him, and that this presence had a beneficent purpose in his life.

"You were not convinced?" asked a man of him as presently he left the house.

d.i.c.k was silent.

"Sometimes I think I am, and sometimes I think I am not," went on the man. "It's all a mystery. But I know one thing."

"What?" asked d.i.c.k.

"My old mother, who held fast to the old simple faith in Christ, had no doubts nor fears," was the man's reply. "I was with her when she was dying, and she told me that angels were beckoning to her. She said she saw the face of her Lord, and that He was waiting to welcome her on the other side. I wish I could see as she saw."

"Did she believe in angels?" asked d.i.c.k.

"She had no doubt," replied the man. "She said that G.o.d sent His angels to guard those they loved, and that those angels helped them to fight evil spirits."

"Accepting the idea of a spirit world, it seems reasonable," and d.i.c.k spoke like one thinking aloud rather than to be answering the man.

"Did not angels minister to Christ after He was tempted of the Devil?" persisted the man. "Did not angels help the Apostles? I don't think I'll bother about spiritualism any more. There may be truth in it; there may not; but I'd rather get hold of the faith my mother had."

"I wonder?" mused d.i.c.k, as he went away alone. "I wonder? But I'll have to send an answer to Olga. My word, what a glorious woman, and what a career! But I don't see my way clear."

He made his way back to his hotel, thinking and wondering. He felt he had come to a crisis in his life, but his way was not plain, and he did not know where to look for light.

CHAPTER XXV.

ROMANOFF'S PHILOSOPHY.

Count Romanoff sat in a handsomely furnished room. It formed a part of a suite he had taken in a fashionable London hotel. He was smoking a cigar, while at his side was a tray with several decanters containing spirits.

He seemed to be puzzled, and often there was an angry gleam in his eyes, a cruel smile on his lips.

"I am not sure of him," he muttered, "and so far I've failed altogether. More than once I was certain that I had him--certain that he was bound to me hand and foot, and then----"

He started to his feet and strode impatiently across the room. He appeared angry. Looking out of the window, he could see the tide of human beings which swept hither and thither in the London street.

"Good and evil," he said aloud--"good and evil. Those people are all the time tempted, and yet--and yet----But I'll have him. It's only a matter of time now."

He heard a knock at the door, and started violently. For a self-contained, strong man, he seemed at times to be peculiarly apprehensive.

"Yes; come in. Ah, it's you, is it? I was expecting you."

"Count Romanoff, are you ever surprised?" It was Mr. John Brown who spoke, and who quietly came into the room.

"Rarely," replied the Count. "Why should I? After all, the events of life are a matter of calculation. Certain forces, certain powers of resistance--and there you are."

"It takes a clever man to calculate the forces or the powers of resistance," replied Mr. Brown.

"Just so. Well, I am clever."

Mr. Brown looked at him curiously, and there was an expression almost of fear in his eyes.

"Count Romanoff," he said, "I wonder sometimes if you are not the Devil--if there is a devil," he added as if in afterthought.

"Why, do you doubt it?"

"I don't know. It would be difficult to explain some things and some people unless you postulate a devil."

The Count laughed almost merrily. "Then why not accept the fact?" he asked.

"Do you?" asked Mr. Brown.

"I have no doubt of it. I--but wait. You must clear the ground. The existence of a devil presupposes evil--and good. If what the world calls evil is evil--there is a devil."

"You speak like one who knows."

"I do know."

"How do you know?"

"Because----But look here, my friend, you did not come here to discuss that problem."

"No; I did not. I came because I wanted to discuss----"

"A young man called Richard Faversham. Very well, let's discuss him," and the Count took a fresh cigar and lit it.

"I've been thinking a good deal since I saw you last," said Mr. Brown--"thinking pretty deeply."

The Count for reply looked at Mr. Brown steadily, but spoke no word.

"I have been wondering at your interest in him," said Mr. Brown. "He's not your sort."

"Perhaps that's a reason," he suggested.

"Still I do not understand you."

"But I understand you. I know you through and through. You, although you are a member of the best London clubs, although you pa.s.s as a Britisher of Britishers, and although you bear a good old commonplace English name, hate Britain, and especially do you hate England. Shall I tell you why?"

"Not aloud, my friend--not aloud; there may be servants outside--people listening," and Mr. Brown spoke in a whisper.

"I shall speak aloud," replied the Count, "and there is no one listening. I feel in a communicative, garrulous mood to-night, and it's no use mincing words. You hate England, because you are German at heart, and a German by birth, although no one knows it--but me. I also hate England."

"Why?" asked Mr. Brown.

"Because it stands for those things I abominate. Because, in spite of its so-called materialism, it still holds fast to the old standards of religion, and all that religion means. It stands for what the world calls progress, for civilisation, and Democracy. And I hate Democracy."

"You are a Russian," commented Mr. Brown--"a Russian aristocrat, therefore you would naturally hate Democracy."

"Am I?" and the Count laughed. "Well, call me that if you like."

"You told me so when we first met."

"Did I? I know you came to me in a sad way. You began to doubt your country, and your country's victory. You saw that it would never gain what it desired and hoped on the battlefield. You realised that this England--this Britain that you had scorned--was mightier than you thought. You saw that John Bull, whom I hate as much as you, was practically invincible."

"Yes; I could not help realising that. I admitted it to you, and you told me to----"

"Take special note of Faversham. I told you his story."

"Yes, you did, and I accepted your advice. I went to Eastroyd; I made his acquaintance."

"And were impressed by the power he had obtained over the working cla.s.ses, the Democracy, that we hear so much about. As you told me, he had taken up their cause, and that he had developed the gift of public oratory so a.s.siduously that his power over working-cla.s.s audiences was almost magnetic."

"But look here, Count, I----"

"Pardon me a moment. I had studied Faversham for years. For reasons of my own, I wanted him to do certain things."

Mr. Brown sat quietly, watching the Count, who ceased speaking suddenly, and seemed to be staring into vacancy.

"Did you ever read a book by a man named John Bunyan, called The Holy War?" he asked, with seeming irrelevance.

Mr. Brown laughed. "Years ago, when I was a boy," he replied.