CHAPTER VII

BEHIND THE SCENES

It was a delightfully warm summer night when Eberstein and his young friend left the house. For some little distance they walked on in silence, as Eberstein was never voluble and Montrose felt disinclined to speak at the moment. Oblivious of his surroundings, more or less, he moved mechanically by the doctor's side, dreaming of Alice and of the love which existed between them. Considering he had met her for the first time an hour or so previously, it seemed ridiculous, even in a dream, to think that she had any such tender feeling for him. But something in the deeps of his own nature was struggling to the surface to assure him that his dream was truth. Much as he valued Eberstein's company, he wished him away at the moment that he might puzzle out the meaning of this strange intuition.

"But that is impossible, just now," said the doctor quietly. "I wish you to come to my house, as I have much to say, and something to show."

Montrose was startled, as he often was at Eberstein's speeches. "You know what I am thinking about?"

"Is that so strange?"

"Well, it isn't, really. You have extraordinary penetration. Sometimes I am quite afraid of you."

"You are never afraid of me," replied Eberstein, shaking his head with a benevolent smile. "Think!"

"No!" Montrose reflected for a few moments. "It is true. I am not afraid!"

The doctor smiled approvingly. "That is right. Fear would prevent my aiding you in any way, and you need aid more than you guess. Remember what the Bible says, my friend: 'In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.'"

"Faith and peace of mind are so hard to get," complained the young man sadly.

"Very hard. The Blessed One said that the Path was difficult."

"The Blessed One!"

"Christ: your Master and mine," replied Eberstein solemnly. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth to life and few there be that find it."

"And those who do not find it are lost?"

"For the time being, not eternally. God is very gentle with His straying sheep, and we have many lives, many opportunities to find the way to the fold. You are coming to the strait gate, Montrose; therefore my aid is given to you lest you should faint on the hard uphill journey."

"I am not good enough even to approach the gate," sighed the young man.

"So you think! But the standard of goodness is not kept on earth, but in heaven, my friend. However"—Eberstein broke off to hail a taxi—"we can talk of these things when we reach my house. Get in, Montrose!"

The young man did so, and was followed by his master, who told the chauffeur to drive to Bloomsbury. Eberstein lived in that unfashionable district, not-withstanding the fact that his practice lay largely amongst wealthy and aristocratic people. Many of the doctor's patients wondered why he did not select a better-class neighbourhood, but Eberstein never gave them any information on this point. Yet his known character might have revealed the reason to an ordinarily shrewd person very easily. The man was greatly given to helping the poor and needy. Not so much the proverbial ragged paupers of the slums—although he helped those also when necessary—as poor curates, badly paid clerks, shabby governesses, struggling ladies, and such-like persons, who had to keep up some sort of appearance on nothing. His money, his sympathy, his medical skill, were all wholly at the service of those who could not pay, and the fees received from his rich patients went to ameliorate the sufferings of the self-respecting, who never complained and showed their pauperism as little as was possible. Eberstein made no boast of his philanthropy: he never even spoke of his many good works. It was perfectly natural for him to go silently attentive about the work of his Master Christ, as he knew he could act in no other way without going contrary to his whole being. To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to teach the ignorant, to comfort the desolate: for these purposes he was in the world.

In one of his exploring expeditions Eberstein had found Montrose dying in a garret and had set him on his legs again in a sympathetic brotherly way which had not offended the young man's pride. More than that, he had supplied food for the starving soul as well as for the starving body, and by explaining the riddles of Life in a perfectly reasonable way he had entirely changed Montrose's outlook. His protégé had been puzzled by this absolutely unselfish conduct, not understanding from inexperience that no return was demanded for these great gifts. But as his limitations began to expand through the teaching, he began to comprehend, and finally he accepted Eberstein as a kind of angel in the flesh, sent to help him in his hour of need. And the philanthropist was so unaffectedly sincere, so reasonable and sympathetic, that the rescued man grew to love him with a reverence rare in the younger generation. The doctor restored his faith in human existence.

"Here we are," said Eberstein, alighting from the taxi and dismissing it. "We can now have an undisturbed hour for conversation."

The doctor admitted himself into the quiet house with his latch-key, as the servants were all in bed. They were never kept up late by their considerate employer, since he recognised that they required their necessary sleep. So the two men entered the hall, ascended the stairs, and betook themselves to a large room at the very top of the mansion. Eberstein kept this entirely to himself, not even seeing his friends therein, much less his patients. Therefore it was with some surprise and more curiosity that Montrose stepped into the apartment and closed the door after him. Then he uttered an exclamation of pleasure—a soft exclamation, for the atmosphere of the place suggested a church.

"What a wonderful room," breathed Montrose, staring round him, "and how holy."

He scarcely knew what caused him to utter the last word, unless it was the unusual looks of the spacious room. Everything was white; the walls, the carpet, the ceiling, and even the light which radiated from two large lamps with opaque globes. The table, the few chairs, the bookcase, and the sofa were of white wood with silken cushions like mounds of snow, and the draperies which veiled the volumes and the windows were also the hue of milk. Yet there was no suggestion of winter in the colourless expanse, for the air was warm and the atmosphere so charged with perfect peace that Montrose felt quite at home. The room, he felt, expressed Eberstein himself. It might have been the chapel of The Holy Grail.

"You never brought me here before," said the young man, feeling that his dark garments were a blot on the purity of the surroundings, "although you have known me for three years, more or less."

"No," assented the doctor, seating himself before the table and indicating a chair for his guest, "it was not necessary."

"Is it necessary to-night?"

"I should not have brought you here, had it not been."

"But why this night of all nights?" persisted the other wonderingly.

"You have met Miss Enistor."

Montrose was more bewildered than ever. "What has she got to do with it, or with me, or with anything?"

"Ask yourself," said Eberstein, and looked steadily into the eyes of Montrose.

"I ask myself!" murmured the guest, mechanically compelled to the speech.

Those kind grey eyes on a level with his own a little distance away poured, as it seemed, such a flood of light towards him that Montrose voluntarily closed his own. Yet it was not a dazzling light which need have frightened him, but an all-enfolding steady radiance, which bathed his whole being in luminous splendour, until he felt that he was partaking of that peace of God which passeth understanding. The tide of glory lifted him up higher and higher beyond the gross envelope of the physical body until he felt himself soaring without wings into an all-embracing sphere of glorious music which expressed itself in colour. In this ocean of rainbow hues he floated, aware that he was using super-physical senses to view super-physical scenes. On him descended, with the swiftness of thought, a golden cloud more brilliant than the noonday sun, and this dissolved away to reveal the form of a young girl clothed in floating white draperies. The face was fair, the hair corn-coloured, the eyes deeply blue and the figure majestic and graceful. Anything more unlike the elfin beauty of Alice can scarcely be imagined. Yet he knew beyond all doubt that this was Alice in another shape which she had worn in another clime under alien stars. His soul flowed out to blend with her soul in one flame of unity. But there was a barrier between them which Montrose strove to break through. Try as he might he could not.

Even in that heaven-world, despair seized him, when he found that the invisible barrier withheld him from his beloved. On her side she seemed equally desirous to come to him, and held out her arms in vain longing. On his face and her face were looks of appealing love baffled by the impossibility of meeting heart to heart. Then a shadow grew up between them swiftly; the shadow menacing and dark of a yellow-skinned man, rather like a Chinese, from whose throat ran a stream of blood. Who this man was Montrose could not tell, even though he had recognised Alice in a different guise. And the enemy—Montrose felt that the wounded creature was an enemy—grew larger and larger until the blackness of which he was part blotted out the splendour of the girl. Blotted out also the atmosphere of colour and music and radiancy, until Montrose, sinking downward in the gloom, opened his physical eyes to find himself seated in the chair opposite Eberstein. Only a single moment had elapsed, for the journey had been as swift as that of Mahomet to the seventh heaven mounted on Al Borak, but he seemed to have been away for hours. The discrepancy was to Montrose impossible to reconcile, even though he grasped confusedly the fact that he had been—in the Fourth Dimension say—where there is no time.

"You now know what Alice Enistor has to do with you," said Eberstein in a quiet impressive tone.

"I don't in one way," faltered the still bewildered young man, "and yet I do in another. All I can be certain of is that she is mine."

"Undoubtedly. She is yours and you are hers."

"Then why could we not come together?"

"The shadow of your sin came between and parted you."

"My sin?"

"That which you committed five thousand years ago," explained the doctor patiently. "Then, self-willed, self-centred, you would not wait the striking of the hour which would have made you one, and therefore, seeking to obtain your desire by force, you broke the Great Law. The Great Law broke you, as it breaks all who disobey. For many ages your soul and her soul have been asunder, but now in the fullness of time you meet again on this physical plane in new vestments of flesh. But your sin has not yet been expiated, and you cannot yet be one with her you love. The shadow stands between you twain and will stand until the debt is paid."

"The shadow—the man?" stammered Montrose confusedly.

"You owe him a life!"

"But he is my enemy. I feel strongly that he is my enemy."

"He was and is: it depends greatly upon you if he continues to be. If one obeys truly the Law of Love, one must not be angered even with one's enemy. What says the Blessed Son of the Most High God?"

As if the words had been placed in his mouth, Montrose replied softly: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you!"

Eberstein bowed his stately head. "Such is the Law of Love."

Rubbing his eyes to make certain that he was entirely awake, Montrose sought for an interpretation. "I do not quite understand."

"There is no need for you to understand further, my friend. This much enlightenment has been vouchsafed you through the mercy of God. For the rest you must work and walk by faith, seeing as in a glass darkly, obeying the Great Law of your own free will, so that your unselfish love may cause hatred to cease."

"Whose hatred?"

"That of the man you sinned against. Only with the aid of the Blessed One!"—Eberstein made the sign of the cross—"can you prevent the Son of Perdition from descending into the Abyss."

"Who is the Son of Perdition?"

"Your enemy, whom Christ loves as He loves you. Your task is to make yourself a channel through which the grace of the Blessed One can freely pour for the salvation of this erring soul. Oh, think how glorious it is that you should be permitted to be the instrument of Christ in this mighty work."

"But I do not know how to go about the work!" exclaimed the bewildered man.

"Watch and pray, my son, for the time when you must act is near at hand. Only by making yourself receptive to the holy influence will you know how to act when the time is ripe."

"You will help me?"

"I am bound to help you since I am obedient to the Law. But much has to be done by yourself, Montrose. I cannot command, as each man has free-will with which even the Logos Himself does not interfere. Christ stands at the door of your heart, but will not enter unless you invite His entrance. Only by doing what you ought to do will the Spirit of Love enter and sup with you."

"But what am I to do?" demanded Montrose desperately.

"Ask your own heart."

"It says nothing."

"The time is not yet ripe for it to say anything. Watch and pray! Come," the doctor spoke in a more matter-of-fact tone, "it is growing late. Go home and sleep: you are becoming exhausted."

"But tell me, Eberstein, if I am right in what I think," pleaded Montrose earnestly. "I know intuitively that I met Miss Enistor in some previous life and that I loved her, as I love her now when we come together for the first time in this incarnation. I had all the feeling of being her friend. Oh what do I say! Friend is too weak a word—of being her lover. If I understand rightly, some sin committed by me has parted us, and that sin I have to expiate before we can come together again."

"That is the case. But ask me no more now. With the aid of the Blessed One you must work out your salvation in fear and trembling."

"Indicate my enemy and I shall forgive him for Alice's sake," cried the young man with impetuous generosity.

"You must forgive him for his own."

"How can I when I don't know why we are enemies?"

"You will know when it is necessary you should know."

Montrose passed his hands across his brow and stood up slowly. "It is all bewildering and difficult."

"Very bewildering and very difficult. I answered that question earlier in the evening. We talk in a circle. To do so is a waste of time. Good-night!"

Another question was trembling on Montrose's lips, but he refrained from putting it, and with a silent hand-shake departed slowly. Accustomed to come and go at will in this house, which was more a home to him than any habitation he had known, the young man descended the stairs and let himself out into the silent square. The balmy summer night was brilliant with stars, and charged with some mysterious healing influence, which soothed and relaxed his weary nerves. On all sides the great city was yet awake and alive with people, each one intent upon the realisation of his or her desire. But here, isolated from the roaring thoroughfares, the quadrangle was comparatively lonely and dark, as the passers-by were few and the lights widely scattered. The central gardens, with their trees and shrubs and turf and flowers, slept within the rusty iron railings, speaking every now and then as a wandering breeze woke the leaves to sigh and whisper. The hurrying steps of a wayfarer, the measured heavy tread of a policeman, the murmur of distant life: Montrose heard these things without hearing as it were, as without seeing he stared at the silent cats gliding through the shadows. He walked along, wrapped up in his own thoughts, seeking mechanically his rooms and bed.

Notwithstanding his accession to considerable wealth, the fortunate youth had but slightly changed his mode of living. He enjoyed better lodgings, better clothes, more nourishing food, and was free from the obligation of compulsory work to exist. But he still lived in unfashionable Bloomsbury, a quiet, inexpensive, and somewhat recluse life, not seeking to enter what is known as society. With his good looks and undeniable talents and newly acquired wealth, he would have been welcome to the gay throng who flutter in the sunshine of pleasure. But there was nothing in Montrose which responded to such aimless allurements. Once or twice friends had taken him to this house and that, where the butterflies gathered, and on this particular night Eberstein had induced him to dine at Mrs. Barrast's. But entertainments of all kinds bored Montrose immensely, and only the presence of Alice had aided him to endure the shallow chatter of his hostess and the artificiality of his surroundings. The after-events in Eberstein's room had both startled and awed him, so that he was still greatly moved by what had taken place when he reached his modest lodgings.

But, as common sense told him, thinking would not help him, as his thoughts spun in a circle and always brought him back to the same point. That point was the meeting with Alice and the weird feelings which contact with her personality had aroused in him. She belonged to his life in some way which he could not quite put into words, and he belonged to hers. They were together and yet apart, but what parted them it was impossible to say, as the vision had not indicated in detail the especial sin, or what had led to the commission of that sin. Soon he would know more—Eberstein had assured him of that. Therefore it would be best to wait for the knowledge. He had been given light enough in the darkness of the path to take the next step, and that light revealed Alice waiting for him to come to her. He was only too willing to do so, as the feeling that he loved her deeply grew with overwhelming swiftness. When she knew what was in his heart and he knew what was in hers, then the next step could be taken. What it might be and where it would lead to Montrose could not say.

However, the doctor had given him necessary instructions for the moment in the phrase "Watch and pray!" To watch for the dawning love in Alice and to pray that he might be worthy of such love seemed to be his task, and a very delightful task it would be. Therefore Montrose knelt down and prayed with all his clean heart that every possible blessing might befall the girl and that, if it was God's will, he might become her husband to cherish and protect her. Then he went to bed in a peaceful frame of mind. Sleep came to him almost immediately, but before his eyes closed he felt that Alice was near him, and knew that in some wordless manner Alice spoke to him.

"We have much to learn and there is pain in the learning," she whispered, "but we are together to suffer together."

"Suffering does not matter," said Montrose, as in a dream, "we are together!"