The House of Mystery Part 4

He caught at this word, for his lover's impatience was burning and beating within him.

"Light!" he said; "my Light!"

She regarded him gravely, and then, as though his fervor had frightened her, she looked beyond at the apple leaves.

"Don't--you'll know soon why you mustn't. Oh, help me, for I am unhappy!" She controlled a little upward ripple of her throat. "She, the Guides say, is a great Light, but I am to be a greater. They sent her to find me, and they directed her to keep me as she has--away from the world. When she first told me that, I was terrified. She had to sit beside me and hold my hand until I went to sleep. It's wonderful how quickly I do sleep when Aunt Paula's with me--she's the most soothing person in the world. If it weren't for her, I don't know what I'd do when I get into my tired times."

"You're never going to have any more tired times, Light," he said.

She went on inflexibly, but he knew that she had heard:

"There was one thing which I did not understand, and neither perhaps did Aunt Paula. The Guides sometimes seem foolish, but in the end they're always wise; I suppose they waited until the time should come.

Though I tried to help it along, though I cried with impatience, I couldn't begin to get voices. I've sat in dark rooms for hours, as Aunt Paula wished me to do. I've felt many true things, but I could never say honestly that I heard anything. But the Guides told Aunt Paula 'wait.' And at last she learned what was the matter.

"I don't know quite how to tell you this next. It came on the way back from India. She had gone there--but perhaps you won't be interested to know why she went. Though I was more than twenty, I'd never had what you might call a flirtation. I'd been kept by the Guides away from men--as I'd once been kept from other children. There was a young Englishman on the steamer. And I liked him."

Blake gave a sudden start, and rose automatically. So this confidence led to another man--that was the obstacle! She seemed to catch his thought.

"Oh, not that!" she cried; "he was only an incident--won't you hear me?" Blake dropped at her feet again.

"But I liked him, though never any more--he was a friend and girls need to play. But he wanted to be more than a friend. Aunt Paula pa.s.sed us on the deck one evening. After I had gone to bed, she came into my stateroom. When the power is in her, I know it--and I never saw it so strong as that night. It shone out of her. But that wasn't the strange thing. Only twice before, had I heard the voices speak from her mouth--mostly, she used to tell me what they said to her. But it was not Aunt Paula talking then--it was Martha, her first and best control.

Shall I tell you all she said?"

Out of the confused impulses running through Dr. Blake, his sense of humor spurted a moment to the fore. He found himself struggling to keep back a smile at the picture of some fat old woman in a dressing gown simulating hysteria that she might ruin a love affair. He was hard put to make his voice sound sincere, as he answered:

"Yes, all."

"She said: 'Child, you are more influenced by this man than you know.

It is not the great love, but it is dangerous. You are to be the great Light only after you have put aside a great earthly love. This vessel from which I am speaking'--she meant Aunt Paula of course--'yielded to an earthly love. That is why she is less than you will be. Would you imperil truth?' It was something like that, only more. Ah, do you see now?"

"I see," said his sense of humor, "that your Aunt Paula is a most unlimited fakir."

"I see," said his voice, "but do you _believe_ it?"

"I've so much cause to believe that I can never tell you all. After Aunt Paula came out of it, I told her what Martha had said. She was dear and sympathetic. She put me to sleep; and when I woke, I was resigned. I did not see him alone again. Now I understand more clearly.

When I have had that earthly love and put it aside, when I have _proved_ myself to my Guides--then the voices will come to me. Martha has repeated it to Aunt Paula whenever I have gone away from home. She repeated it before I came up here--"

"They had cause to repeat it," he took her up fiercely; "cause to repeat it!"

"I--I'm afraid so. But how should I know? I looked at you--and it seemed right, everlastingly right, that I should know you. And then I did--so suddenly and easily that it made me shudder afterwards for fear the test had come--the agony which I have been afraid to face. Ah, it's bold saying this!" She drooped forward, and her porcelain skin turned to rose.

Blake sat breathless, dumb. Never had she seemed so far away from him as then; never had she seemed so desirable. He struggled with his voice, but no word came; and it was she who spoke first.

"Now I know--it is the agony!"

At this admission, all the love and all the irritation in him came up together into a force which drove him on. They were alone; none other looked; but had all the world been looking, he might have done what he did. He rose to his feet, he dropped both his hands on her shoulders, he devoured her sapphirine eyes with his eyes, and his voice was steel as he spoke:

"You love me. You have always loved me. In spite of everything, you will marry me! You will say it before you are done with me!"

He stopped suddenly, for her eyelids were drooping. Had he not been a physician, he would have said that she was going to faint. But her color did not change. And suddenly she was speaking in a low tone which mocked his, but with no expression nor intonations:

"I love you. I have always loved you. In spite of everything, I shall marry you."

He dropped his hands from her shoulders with a bewildered impulse to seize her in his arms; then the publicity of the place came to him, and he drew his hands back. On that motion, her eyes opened and she flashed a little away from him.

"What did I say?" she exclaimed; "and why--oh, don't touch me--don't come near--can't you see it makes it harder for me to renounce?"

"But you said--"

"I said before you touched me--ah, don't touch me again--that I _should_ make it hard--the harder I make it, the more I shall grow--but I can't bear so much!" She had risen, was moving away.

"Let's walk," he said shortly; and then, "Even if you put me aside, won't you keep me in your life?"

"The Guides will tell me," she answered simply.

"But I may see you--call on you in the city?"

"Unless the Guides forbid."

They were walking side by side now; they had turned from the sunken arena, which surrounded the tennis court, toward the house. Blake saw that the driver of the Mountain House stage was approaching. He waved a yellow envelope as he came on:

"Been looking for you, Miss Markham. Telegram. Charges paid."

Dr. Blake stepped away as Annette, in the preliminary flutter of fear with which a woman always receives a telegram, tore open the envelope and read the enclosure. Without a word, she handed it over to him. It read:

ANNETTE MARKHAM:

Take next train home. Advice of Martha. Wire arrival.

PAULA MARKHAM.

"Perhaps the Guides know," she said, smiling but quivering, too.

"Perhaps they're going to make it easier for me."

IV

HIS FIRST CALL

Dear Mr. Blake (read the letter): It was nice to get your note and to know that you are back in town so soon. Of course you must come to see me. I want Aunt Paula to know that all the complimentary things I have said about you are true. We are never at home in the conventional sense--but I hope Wednesday evening will do.

Cordially,

ANNETTE MARKHAM.