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Carried away by his own forceful emotion he hardly knew what he
said, . . but an unspeakable, dizzy joy flooded his soul, as he
caught the look she gave him! ... a wild, sweet, amazed, half-
tender, half-agonized, wholly HUMAN look, suggestive of the most
marvellous possibilities! One effort and she released her hand
from his, and moved a little apart, her eyes kindling with
celestial sympathy in which there was the very faintest touch of
self-surrender. Self-surrender? ... what! from an Angel to a
mortal? ... Ah no! ... it could not be,--yet he felt filled all at
once with a terrible sense of power that at the same time was
mingled with the deepest humility and fear.

"Hush!"--she said, and her lovely, low voice was tremulous,--
"Hush!--Thou dost speak as if we were already in God's World! I
love thee, Theos! ... and truly, because thou art prisoned here, I
love the sad Earth also! ... but dost thou think to what thou
wouldst so eagerly persuade me? To live a mortal life? ... to die?
... to pass through the darkest phase of world-existence known in
all the teeming spheres? Nay!".. and a look of pathetic sorrow
came over her face.. "How could I, even for thee, my Theos,
forsake my home in Heaven?"

Her last words were half-questioning, half-hesitating, ... her
manner was as of one in doubt.. and Theos, kneeling still,
surveyed her in worshipping silence. Then he suddenly remembered
what the Monk and Mystic, Heliobas, had said to him at Dariel on
the morning after his trance of soul-liberty: . . "If, as I
conjecture, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher
spheres than ours, you would not drag her spiritual and death-
unconscious brightness down to the level of the 'reality' of a
mere human life? ... Nay, if you would you could not!" And now,
strange to say, he felt that he COULD but WOULD NOT; and he was
overcome with remorse and penitence for the egotistical nature of
his own appeal.

"My love--my life!" he said brokenly,--"Forgive me,--forgive my
selfish prayer! ... Self spoke,--not I, . . yet I had thought Self
dead, and buried forever!" A faint sigh escaped him ... "Believe
me, Sweet, I would not have thee lose one hour of Heaven's
ecstasies, . . I would not have thee saddened by Earth's wilful
miseries, ... no! not even for that lightning-moment which numbers
up man's mortal days! Speed back to Angel-land, my Edris!--I will
love thee till I die, and leave the Afterward to Christ. Be glad,
thou fairest, dearest One! ... unfurl thy rainbow wings and fly
from me! ... and wander singing through the groves of Heaven,
making all Heaven musical, . . perchance in the silence of the night
I may catch the echo of thy voice and fancy thou art near! And
trust me, Edris! ... trust me! ... for my faith will not falter,
... my hope shall not waver, ... and though in the world I may, I
MUST have tribulation, yet will I believe in Him who hath by
simple love overcome the world!"

He ceased, . . a great quiet seemed to fall upon him,--the quiet of
a deep and passive resignation.

Edris drew nearer to him,--timidly as a shy bird, yet with a
wonderful smile quivering on her lips, and in the clear depths of
her starry eyes. Very gently she placed her arms about his neck
and looked down at him with divinely compassionate tenderness.

"Thou beloved one!" she said, "Thou whose spirit was formerly
equal to mine, and to all angels, in God's sight though through
pride it fell! Learn that thou art nearer to me now than thou hast
been for a myriad ages! ... between us are renewed the strong,
sweet ties that shall nevermore be broken, unless ..." and her
voice faltered,--"Unless thou, of thine own Free Will, break them
again in spite of all my prayers! For, BECAUSE thou art immortal
even as I, though thou art pent up in mortality, even so must thy
Will remain immortally unfettered, and what thou dost firmly elect
to do, God will not prevent. The Dream of thy Past was a lesson,
not a command,--thou art free to forget or remember it as thou
wilt while on earth, since it is only AFTER Death that Memory is
ineffaceable, and, with its companion Remorse, constitutes Hell.
Obey God, or disobey Him,--He will not force thee either way, . .
constrained love hath no value! Only this is the Universal Law,--
that whosoever disobeys, his disobedience recoils on his own head
as of Necessity it MUST,--whereas obedience is the working in
perfect harmony with all Nature, and of equal Necessity brings its
own reward. Cling to the Cross for one moment.. the moment called
by mortals, Life, ... and it shall lift thee straightway into
highest Heaven! There will I wait for thee,--and there thou shalt
make me thine own forever!"

He sighed and gazed at her wistfully.

"Alas, my Edris! ... Not till then?" he murmured.

She bent over him and kissed his forehead,--a caress as brief and
light as the passing flutter of a bird's wing.

"Not till then!"--she whispered--"Unless the longing of thy love
compels!"

He started. What did she mean? ... His eyes flashed eager inquiry
into hers, so soft and brilliantly clear, with the light of an
eternal peace dwelling in their liquid, mysterious loveliness,--
and meeting his questioning look, the angelic smile brightened
more gloriously round her lips. But there was now something
altogether unearthly in her beauty, ... a wondrous inward
luminousness began to transfigure her face and form, . . he saw her
garments whiten to a sparkling radiance as of sunbeams on snow,
... the halo round her bright hair deepened into flame-like glory
--her stature grew loftier, and became as it were endowed with
supreme and splendid majesty, . . and the exquisite fairness of her
countenance waxed warmly transparent, with the delicate hue of a
white rose, through which the pink color faintly flushes soft
suggestions of ruddier life. His gaze dwelt upon her in
unspeakable wondering adoration, mingled with a sense of
irrepressible sorrow and heaviness of heart, ... he felt she was
about to leave him, . . and was it not a parting of soul from soul?

Just then the Sun stepped royally forth from between the red and
gold curtains of the east,--and in that blaze of earth's life-
radiance her figure became resplendently invested with vivid rays
of roseate lustre that far surpassed the amber shining of the Orb
of day! Awed, dazzled, and utterly overcome, he yet strove to keep
his straining eyes steadily upon her,--conscious that her smile
still blessed him with its tenderness, ... he made a wild effort
to drag himself nearer to her, . . to touch once more the glittering
edge of her robe ... to detain her one little, little moment
longer! Ah! how wistfully, how fondly she looked upon him! ...
Almost it seemed as if she might, after all, consent to stay! ...
He stretched out his arms with a pathetic gesture of love, fear,
and soul-passionate supplication.

"Edris! ... Edris!".. he cried half despairingly. "Oh, by the
strength of thine Angelhood have pity on the weakness of my
Manhood!"

Surely she heard, or seemed to hear! ... and yet she gave no
answer! ... No sign! ... No promise!--no gesture of farewell! ...
only a look of divine, compassionating, perfect love, . . a look so
pure, so penetrating, so true, so rapturous, that flesh and blood
could bear the glory of her transfigured Presence no longer,--and
blind with the burning effulgence of her beauty, he shut his eyes
and covered his face. He knew now, if he had never known it
before, what was meant by "an Angel standing in the sun!"
[Footnote: Revelation, chap, xix., 17.] Moreover, he also knew
that what Humanity calls "miracles" ARE possible, and DO happen,--
and that instead of being violations of the Law of Nature as we
understand it, they are but confirmations of that Law in its
DEEPER DEPTHS,--depths which, controlled by Spiritual Force alone,
have not as yet been sounded by the most searching scientists. And
what is Material Force but the visible manifestation of the
Spiritual behind it? ... He who accepts the Material and denies
the Spiritual, is in the untenable position of one who admits an
Effect and denies a Cause! And if both Spiritual and Material BE
accepted, then how can we reasonably dare to set a limit to the
manifestations of either the one or the other?

* * * * * * *

When he at last looked up, Edris had vanished! He was alone, . .
alone on the Field of Ardath, ... the field that was "barren" in
very truth, now she, his Angel, had been drawn away, as it seemed,
into the sunlight, . . absorbed like a paradise-pearl into those
rays of life-giving gold that lit and warmed the reddening earth
and heaven!

Slowly and dizzily he rose to his feet, and gazed about him in
vague bewilderment. He had passed ONE NIGHT on the field! One
night only! ... and he felt as though he had lived through years
of experience! Now, the VISION was ended, . . Edris, the REALITY,
had fled, . . and the World was before him, . . the World, with all
the unsatisfying things it grudgingly offers, . . the World in which
Al-Kyris had been a "City Magnificent" in the centuries gone,--and
in which he, too, had played his part before, and had won fame, to
be forgotten as soon as dead! Fame! ... how he had longed and
thirsted for it! ... and what a foolish, undesirable distinction
it seemed to him now!

Steadying his thoughts by a few moments of calm reflection, he
remembered what he had in charge to do, . . TO REDEEM HIS PAST. To
use and expend whatever force was in him for the good, the help,
the consolement, and the love of others, ... NOT to benefit
himself! This was his task, . . and the very comprehension of it
gave him a rush of vigor and virile energy that at once lifted the
cloud of love-loneliness from his soul.

"My Edris!" he whispered.. "Thou shalt have no cause to weep for
me in Heaven again! ... with God's help I will win back my lost
heritage!"

As he spoke the words his eyes caught a glimpse of something white
on the turf where, but a moment since, his Angel-love had stood,--
he stooped toward it, . . it was one half-opened bud of the
wonderful "Ardath-flowers" that had covered the field in such
singular profusion on the previous night when she first appeared.
One only! ... might he not gather it?

He hesitated, . . then very gently and reverently broke it off, and
tenderly bore it to his lips. What a beautiful blossom it was! ...
its fragrance was unlike that of any other flower,--its whiteness
was more pure and soft than that of the rarest edelweiss on Alpine
snows, and its partially disclosed golden centre had an almost
luminous brightness. As he held it in his hand, all sorts of
vague, delicious thoughts came sweeping across his brain, ...
thoughts that seemed to set themselves to music wild and strange
and NEW, and suggestive of the sweetest, noblest influences! A
thrill of expectation stirred in him, as of great and good things
to be done,--grand changes to be wrought in the complex web of
human destiny, brought about by the quickening and development of
a pure, unselfish, spiritual force, that might with saving benefit
flow into the perplexed and weary intelligence of man; . . and
cheered, invigorated, and conscious of a circling, widening, ever-
present Supreme Power that with all-surrounding love was ever on
the side of work done for love's sake, he gently shut the flower
within his breast, resolving to carry it with him wheresoever he
went as a token and proof of the "signs and wonders" of the
Prophet's Field.

And now he prepared to quit the scene of his mystic Vision, in
which he had followed with prescient pain the brief, bright
career, the useless fame, the evil love-passion, and final fate of
his Former Self,--and crossing the field with lingering tread, he
looked back many times to the fallen block of stone where he had
sat when he had first perceived God's maiden Edris, stepping
softly through the bloom. When should he again meet her? Alas! ...
not till Death, the beautiful and beneficent Herald of true
Liberty, summoned him to those lofty heights of Paradise where she
had habitation. Not till then, unless, ... unless, ... and his
heart beat with a sudden tumult as he recollected her last
words, . . "UNLESS THE LONGING OF THY LOVE COMPELS!"

Could love COMPEL her, he wondered, to come to him once more while
yet he lived on earth? Perhaps! ... and yet if he indeed had such
power of love, would it be generous or just to exert it? No! ...
for to draw her down from Heaven to Earth seemed to him now a sort
of sacrilege,--dearer to him was HER joy than his own! But suppose
the possibility of her being actually HAPPY with him in mortal
existence, ... suppose that Love, when absolutely pure,
unselfishly mutual, helpful, and steadfast, had it in its gift to
make even the Sorrowful Star a Heaven in miniature, what then?

He would not trust himself to think of this! ... the mere shadowy
suggestion of such supreme delight filled him with a strong
passion of yearning, to which in his accepted creed of Self-
abnegation he dared not yield! Firmly restraining, resisting, and
renouncing his own desires, he mentally raised a holy shrine for
her in his soul, ... a shrine of pure faith, warm with eternal
aspirations and bright with truth, wherein he hallowed the memory
of her beauty with a sense of devout, love-like gladness. She was
safe.. she was content, . . she blossomed flower-like in the highest
gardens of God where all things fared well;--enough for him to
worship her at a distance, . . to keep the clear reflection of her
loveliness in his mind, ... and to live, so that he might deserve
to follow and find her when his work on earth was done. Moreover,
Heaven to him was no longer a vague, mythical realm, ill-defined
by the prosy descriptions of church-preachers,--it was an actual
WORLD to which HE was linked,--in which HE had possessions, of
which HE was a native, and for the perpetuation and enlargement of
whose splendor ALL worlds existed!

Arrived at the boundary of the field, the spot marked by the
broken half-buried pillar of red granite Heliobas had mentioned,
he paused--thinking dreamily of the words of Esdras, who in answer
to his Angel-visitant's inquiry: "Why art thou disquieted?" had
replied: "Because thou hast forsaken me, and yet I did according
to thy words, and I went into the field, and lo! I have seen and
yet see, that I am not able to express." Whereupon the Angel had
said, "Stand up manfully and I will advise thee!"

"Stand up manfully!" Yes! ... this is what he, Theos Alwyn, meant
to do. He would "stand up manfully" against the howling iconoclasm
and atheism of the Age,--he would be Poet henceforth in the true
meaning of the word, namely Maker, . . he would MAKE not BREAK the
grand ideal hopes and heaven-climbing ambitions of Humanity! ...
he would endeavor his utmost best to be that "Hierarch and Pontiff
of the world"--as a modern rugged Apostle of Truth has nobly
said,--"who Prometheus-like can shape new Symbols and bring new
fire from heaven to fix them into the deep, infinite faculties of
Man."

With a brief silent prayer, he turned away at last, and walked
slowly, in the lovely silence of the early Eastern morning, back
to the place from whence he had last night wandered,--the
Hermitage of Elzear, near the Ruins of Babylon. He soon came in
sight of it, and also perceived Elzear himself, stooping over a
small plot of ground in front of his dwelling, apparently
gathering herbs. When he approached, the old man looked up and
smiled, giving him a silent, expressively courteous morning
greeting,--by his manner it was evident that he thought his guest
had merely been out for an early stroll ere the heat of the day
set in. And yet Al-Kyris! ... How real had seemed that dream-
existence in that dream-city! The figure of Elzear looked scarcely
more substantial than the phantom-forms of Sah-luma, Zephoranim,
Khosrul, Zuriel, or Zabastes,--while Lysia's exquisite face and
seductive form, Niphrata's pensive beauty, and all the local
characteristics of the place, were stamped on the dreamer's memory
as faithfully as scenes flashed by the sun on the plates of
photography! True, the pictures were perhaps now slightly fading
into the similitude of pale negatives, . . but still, would not
everything that happened in the ACTUAL world merge into that same
undecided dimness with the lapse of time?

He thought so, . . and smiled at the thought, ... the transitory
nature of earthly things was a subject for joy to him now,--not
regret. With a kindly word or two to his venerable host, he went
through the open door of the Hermitage, and entered the little
room he had left only a few hours previously. It appeared to him
as familiar and UNfamiliar as Al-Kyris itself! ... till raising
his eyes he saw the great Crucifix against the wall,--the sacred
Symbol whose meaning he had forgotten and hopelessly longed for in
his Dream,--and from which, before his visit to the field of
Ardath, he had turned with a sense of bitter scorn and proud
rejection. But NOW! ... Now he gazed upon it in unspeakable
remorse,--in tenderest desire to atone, ... the sweet, grave,
patient Eyes of the holy Figure seemed to meet his with a wondrous
challenge of love, longing, and most fraternal, sympathetic
comprehension of his nature. ... he paused, looking, ... and the
pre-eminently false words of George Herbert suddenly occurred to
him, "Thy Saviour sentenced joy!" O blasphemy! ... SENTENCED joy?
Nay!--rather re-created it, and invested it with divine
certainties, beyond all temporal change or evanishment! ...
Yielding to a swift impulse, he threw himself on his knees, and
with clasped hands, leaned his brows against the feet of the
sculptured Christ. There he rested in wordless peace,--his whole
soul entranced in a divine passion of faith, hope, and love ...
there with the "Ardath flower" in his breast, he consecrated his
life to the Highest Good,--and there in absolute humility, and
pure, child-like devotion, he crucified SELF forever!

PART III.--POET AND ANGEL.

"O Golden Hair! ... O Gladness of an Hour
Made flesh and blood!"

* * * * *

"Who speaks of glory and the force of love
And thou not near, my maiden-minded dove!
With all the coyness, all the beauty sheen
Of thy rapt face? A fearless virgin-queen,
A queen of peace art thou,--and on thy head
The golden light of all thy hair is shed
Most nimbus-like, and most suggestive too
Of youthful saints enshrined and garlanded."

* * * * *

"Our thoughts are free,--and mine have found at last
Their apt solution; and from out the Past
There seems to shine as 'twere a beacon-fire:
And all the land is lit with large desire
Of lambent glory; all the quivering sea
Is big with waves that wait the Morn's decree
As I, thy vassal, wait thy beckoning smile
Athwart the splendors of my dreams of thee!"

--"A Lover's Litanies."--ERIC MACKAY.

CHAPTER XXXI.

FRESH LAURELS.

It was a dismal March evening. London lay swathed in a melancholy
fog,--a fog too dense to be more than temporarily disturbed even
by the sudden gusts of the bitter east wind. Rain fell steadily,
sometimes changing to sleet, that drove in sharp showers on the
slippery roads and pavements, bewildering the tired horses, and
stirring up much irritation in the minds of those ill-fated foot-
passengers whom business, certainly not pleasure, forced to
encounter the inconveniences of the weather. Against one house in
particular--an old-fashioned, irregular building situated in a
somewhat out-of-the-way but picturesque part of Kensington--the
cold, wet blast blew with specially keen ferocity, as though it
were angered by the sounds within,--sounds that in truth rather
resembled its own cross groaning. Curious short grunts and
plaintive cries, interspersed with an occasional pathetic long-
drawn whine, suggested dimly the idea that somebody was playing,
or trying to play, on a refractory stringed instrument, the well-
worn composition known as Raff's "Cavatina." And, in fact, had the
vexed wind been able to break through the wall and embody itself
into a substantial being, it would have discovered the producer of
the half-fierce, half-mournful noise, in the person of the
Honorable Frank Villiers, who, with that amazingly serious ardor
so often displayed by amateur lovers of music, was persistently
endeavoring to combat the difficulties of the violoncello. He
adored his big instrument,--the more unmanageable it became in his
hands, the more he loved it. Its grumbling complaints at his
unskilful touch delighted him,--when he could succeed in awakening
a peevish dull sob from its troubled depths, he felt a positive
thrill of almost professional triumph,--and he refused to be
daunted in his efforts by the frequently barbaric clamor his
awkward bowing wrung from the tortured strings. He tried every
sort of music, easy and intricate--and his happiest hours were
those when, with glass in eye and brow knitted in anxious
scrutiny, he could peer his way through the labyrinth of a sonata
or fantasia much too complex for any one but a trained artist,
enjoying to the full the mental excitement of the discordant
struggle, and comfortably conscious that as his residence was
"detached," no obtrusive neighbor could either warn him to desist,
or set up an opposition nuisance next door by constant practice on
the distressingly over-popular piano. One thing very much in his
favor was, that he never manifested any desire to perform in
public. No one had ever heard him play, . . he pursued his favorite
amusement in solitude, and was amply satisfied, if when questioned
on the subject of music, he could find an opportunity to say with
a conscious-modest air, "MY instrument is the 'cello." That was
quite enough self-assertion for him, . . and if any one ever urged
him to display his talent, he would elude the request with such
charming grace and diffidence, that many people imagined he must
really be a great musical genius who only lacked the necessary
insolence and aplomb to make that genius known.

The 'cello apart, Villiers was very generally recognized as a
discerning dilettante in most matters artistic. He was an
excellent judge of literature, painting, and sculpture, . . his
house, though small, was a perfect model of taste in design and
adornment, . . he knew where to pick up choice bits of antique
furniture, dainty porcelain, bronzes, and wood-carvings, while in
the acquisition of rare books he was justly considered a notable
connoisseur. His delicate and fastidious instincts were displayed
in the very arrangement of his numerous volumes, ... none were
placed on such high shelves as to be out of hand reach, . . all were
within close touch and ready to command, ranged in low, carved oak
cases or on revolving stands, ... while a few particularly rare
editions and first folios were shut in curious little side niches
with locked glass-doors, somewhat resembling small shrines such as
are used for the reception of sacred relics. The apartment he
called his "den"--where he now sat practising the "Cavatina" for
about the two-hundredth time--was perhaps the most fascinating
nook in the whole house, inasmuch as it contained a little bit of
everything, arranged with that perfect attention to detail which
makes each object, small and great, appear not only ornamental,
but positively necessary. In one corner a quaint old jar
overflowed with the brightness of fresh yellow daffodils; in
another a long, tapering Venetian vase held feathery clusters of
African grass and fern, . . here the medallion of a Greek
philosopher or Roman Emperor gleamed whitely against the sombrely
painted wall; there a Rembrandt portrait flashed out from the
semi-obscure background of some rich, carefully disposed fold of
drapery,--while a few admirable casts from the antique lit up the
deeper shadows of the room, such as the immortally youthful head
of the Apollo Belvedere, the wisely serene countenance of the
Pallas Athene that Goethe loved, and the Cupid of Praxiteles.

Judging from his outward appearance only, few would have given
Villiers credit for being the man of penetrative and almost
classic refinement he really was,--he looked far more athletic
than aesthetic. Broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a round,
blunt head firmly set on a full, strong throat, he had, on the
whole, a somewhat obstinate and pugilistic air which totally
belied his nature. His features, open and ruddy, were, without
being handsome, decidedly attractive--the mouth was rather large,
yet good-tempered; the eyes bright, blue, and sparklingly
suggestive of a native inborn love of humor. There was something
fresh and piquant in the very expression of naive bewilderment
with which he now adjusted his eyeglass--a wholly unnecessary
appendage--and set himself strenuously to examine anew the chords
of that extraordinary piece of music which others thought so easy
and which he found so puzzling, . . he could manage the simple
melody fairly well, but the chords!