The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance

ft breeze blowing on my face. The scene was perfectly enchanting; the mountains were bathed in a delicate rose-purple glow reflected from the p

ight high through the calm air, and alight again with a flash of silver pinions on the translucent blue. While I stood gazing in absorbed delight

at do you think o

ed upon me. "Oh, the yacht that ancho

tain's look expressed

music sounding from her deck had been the last thing which had haunted my ears befor

s bridge and smiled. "She must h

fuzzy brows me

h never saw her go. He must have missed

isn't it?" I said-"May

tain

ood beside him, looking out to t

" I asked, laughingly, "Was

His brow was furrowed wit

at. She had no steam, but she carried full sail, and she came into the Sound with all her canvas bellying out as though she were driven by a stormy sou'wester. The

ut to us from the shore, pulled by one man, who bent to his oa

" shouted t

nintelligible Highland dialect, with fresh eggs and butter, hoping to effect a sale. The steward was summoned, and bargaining began. I listened and looked on, amused and interested, and I pr

-"did you see the big yacht that ca

answer-"But my name'

mi

rick laughe

ie, then! Did yo

er mony a day. She'

mil

yac

ooked u

on the sea! Jamie's no fule wi' the right sort, an' the yacht is a shentleman

ck became kee

The owner of the

nt out his store of new-laid eggs with great c

s his

n',"-said Jamie, with a cunnin

it wrongly?

ted his eyes, which were dark and

gentleman, then?" enquired

tenance was

ateffer,"-he said-"Ye'll no miss her

of it a small bunch of pink bell-heather,-the delicate waxe

d o' this,"-he said-"An' he had it a' but thi

t from h

?" I asked

ious expression of something like fear passing over hi

in my dress. As I did

'll be no seein'

How do y

of meditative croon-"One road to the West, and the other to the East!-a

Derrick-"Like your friend the 'shentlem

empty basket, he gave us a hasty nod of farewell, and, scrambling down the companion ladder wi

much alone in desolate places like Mull, and seeing nothing all their time but c

"I feel quite sorry for you! And yet I daresay if we mee

with a laugh-"I shall need a good deal of teaching to show me how a sa

. He looked ill and careworn, as though he had slept badly, and he sh

"Anything that cannot be at once explained is always interesting and delightful to a woman! That is why spiritualis

ust allow me to say that I

s hand wearily over his brows-

for my lovely rooms,-they are almost to

two,-fat, ugly and stupid. Some of them are dirty in their persons and in their habits. There are cert

aug

e very bitt

ggests a fairy tale. I have not an ingenuous mind. I know that th

in amazement-"I'm v

your own mind you know you do not. You dream-and your life is that of vision simply. I'm not sure that I should like to see you wake. For as long as you can dream you will believe in the fairy ta

actically as himself in the world, and if not with such financially successful results, only because my aims had never been mere money-spinning. He had attained enormous wealth,-I a

the same standpoint. Yours is the more enviable condition. You are looking well,-you feel well-you are well! Health is the best of all things." He paused, a

ow it had bee

laughing-"The owner, according to your Highland fellow, has the same blossoms on board

red of it, and was half inclined to take it off and throw it away. Yet somehow I could not do this. Glancing at my own reflection in a mirror, I s

e's state-room, which, though quite spacious for a yacht's accommodation, looked rather dreary, having no carpet on the floor, no curtains to the bed, and no little graces of adornment anywhere,-nothing but a few shelves against the wall on which were ranged some blue and black medicine bottles, relieved by

get that bright

ned with more patience than she usually showed

it was the strange yacht that had the music on board last night. It kept me a

aug

ou could not have thought it a gramophone

looked at me-"Well, it may have been, to you,-you seem to find delight in everything,-I'm sure I don't know why! Of course it's very n

ece of embroidery to occupy m

board,"-she resumed, presently-"Ha

that everythin

si

fice myself." Here she sighed again. I saw she was really convinced that she was immolating herself o

answered-"and I said then, as I say

dismally-"They know the symptoms, and they can only avert the end for a

d a good deal for hi

London, and find another man to attend to them during his absence. He is so very c

ial treatment fo

d up here in the next cabin-and while I hold two handles he turns it on and it r

at her wi

and, do you really believe in that

inside and out. And there's scarcely any drug that can do that. Electricity is the only remedy. It gives the little brutes a shock;"-and the poor lady laughed weakly-"and it

ngs are composed of good and evil particles. If the good are encouraged, they drive out the evil,-if the evil, they drive out the good. It's the same wi

k on her pil

upper hand. Just think!-our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are to blame for half our evils. Their diseases become ours in various new forms. It's cruel,-

and wild that I

your heart?" I said, gently-"I should be very sorry

d, nobody helping them or caring for them, and I almost feel as if I must scream for mercy. It wouldn't be any use screaming,-but the scream is in my soul all the same. People in prisons, people in shipwrecks, people dying by inches in hospitals, no good in their lives and no hope-and not a sign of comfort from the God whom the Churc

ppealingly. I took her worn and wasted finger

iss Harlan

"-she interrupted-"I'm

lan

smiling a little-"Surely you kn

seem to care about dress though you are always well-gowned-you don't go to balls or theatres or race-meetings,-you are a general favourite, yet you avoi

to myself,-a lover who loved me beyond all power of human expression,-here the rush of strange and inexplicable emotion in me was hurled back on my mind with a shock of mingled terror and surprise from a dead wall of stony fact,-it was true,

arland-"Though you blush and grow pale a

uisitive glan

h of the strong hand that had held mine in my dream of the past night. It was mere fancy, and I

si

ish,"-she said-"I want to t

ttle wonderingly, for I had not th

nds, and I heard him talking rather loudly in a room where he and two or three other men had gone to smoke. He said something that made me stand still and wonder whether I was mad or dreaming. 'Pity me when I'm married to Catherine Harland!' Pity him? I listened,-I knew it was wrong to listen, but I could not help myself. 'Well, you'll get enough cash with her to set you all right in the world, anyhow,'-said another man, 'You can put up with a plain wife for the sake of a pretty fortune.' Then he,-my love!-spoke again-'Oh, I shall make the best o

o pitifully that I was

d taking her hand, I kissed it gentl

. I told nobody why-except HIM. He seemed sorry and a little ashamed,-but I think he was more vexed at losing my fortune than anything else. I said to him that I had never thought a

seem a fanciful theory. Love makes all things fair, and anyone who is conscious of being ten

ailway accident-you remember the tale in Forster's 'Life'? How the carriage hung over the edge of an embankment but did not actually fall,-and Dickens was clinging on to it all the time. He ne

ve which was not love at all! You seem to think there was some cruelty or unhappiness in the chance that separa

only possible way,"-she

e passed with a man who was a merely selfish fortune-hunter! You would have had to see him grow colder and more callous every day-your heart would have been to

t me, but di

ht take my words-"The ordinary love,-or, I would say, the ordinary mating and marr

her pillows

,"-she said-"How can I lov

f illness when you might just as well think of health. Oh, I know you will say I am 'up in the air' as your father expresses it,-but it's true all the same that if you love

very bitter

along and be happy in your own strange fanciful way! I cannot be other than I am,-Dr. Brayle will tell you tha

u that?" I queried-"

and every day, I should have been dead long ago. I have to c

m my seat

uld cure you

e me good to talk to you and tell you all my sad little history. I shall get up presently and have my e

unless they resolve to help alo

weary lit

t's no use to me! I'm past all helping of m

ent on-"did you not, to

happy? Do you rea

st crept into

d-"I should not have the brain

aug

"-I answered-"But truth is somet

half in wonder,

what

surroundings which we do not make for ourselves, and that our troubles are born of our own wrong thi

closed on mi

e this?" she half whispered-"I d

my kneelin

you anything! You are in darkness instead of daylight, an

altogether when I was quite young. Father made it seem absurd. He's a clever

derst

deliberate iconoclast of the most callous and remorseless type. That he had good points in his character was not to be denied,-a murderer may have these. But to be in his company for very long was to feel that there

things, while she watched me rat

going on

es

se that bit of heather in your dress,-it

ated a

me for speaking as I

ou defending your own fairy ground! For it IS li

ts, anyway!"-I answered

ll have another talk about it some day. Would you tell

bathed in brilliant sunshine; the 'Diana' was cutting her path swiftly through waters which marked her course on either side by a streak of white foam. I mentally contrasted the loveliness of th

nts you in ten m

ly offering me a chair, which I declin

on board,"-he answere

ent from choice, not nece

astonishment-"If you were not so charming I should say

aug

it is opinionated to b

well as you or I,

is a form of illness,-

, much to his v

mischief is in the mind? But there!-I mustn't interfere, I suppose!

e furrowed the cor

any accomplishments do you

own eyes, and he dr

the cure of any mind trouble must come from within-not

Really not? I should h

error if you thought s

l interest flashed

what your theories are"-he said,

do!" I answe

or a moment in perplexity-

re asked to give a 'professional' opinion of you I should say you wer

m a demure little curts

ok it; but looks

hem sometimes. If I am 'neurotic,' my looks do not pity

slight frown. He gl

aid-"Miss Harland

old!" I added, gaily. "See if y

such a way as to keep him a prisoner till I chose to let him go. I watched him till his eyes began to look vague and a kind of fixity settled on his fea

isn't it?" I s

used from a sleep,

orgotten what I was doing. I was thin

ou by this time"-and I smiled. "Y

d manner, and turning away from me, we

hat might be brought to bear on his patients for their well-being, whatever his pretensions to medical skill might be. It was to his advantage to show them the worst side of a disease in order to accentuate his own cleverness in deali