and its effect.  Love, I knew, could not, as he had said, be analysed—­but the love I had always dreamed of was not the love with which the majority of mankind are content—­the mere physical delight which ends in satiety.  It was something not only for time, but for eternity.  Away from Santoris I found it quite easy to give myself up to the dream of joy which shone before me like the mirage of a promised land,—­ but in his company I felt as though something held me back and warned me to beware of too quickly snatching at a purely personal happiness.

We reached the ‘Diana’ in a very few minutes—­we had made the little journey almost in silence, for my companions were, or appeared to be, as much lost in thought as I was.  As we descended to our cabins Mr. Harland drew me back and detained me alone for a moment.

“Santoris is going away to-morrow,” he said—­“He will probably have set those wonderful sails of his and flown before daybreak.  I’m sorry!”

“So am I,” I answered—­“But, after all—­you would hardly want him to stay, would you?  His theories of life are very curious and upsetting, and you all think him a sort of charlatan playing with the mysteries of earth and heaven!  If he is able to read thoughts, he cannot be altogether flattered at the opinion held of him by Dr. Brayle, for example!”

Mr. Harland’s brows knitted perplexedly.

“He says he could cure me of my illness,” he went on,—­“and Brayle declares that a cure is impossible.”

“You prefer to believe Brayle, of course?” I queried.

“Brayle is a physician of note,” he replied,—­“A man who has taken his degree in medicine and knows what he is talking about.  Santoris is merely a mystic.”

I smiled a little sadly.

“I see!” And I held out my hand to say good-night.  “He is a century before his time, and maybe it is better to die than forestall a century.”

Mr. Harland laughed as he pressed my hand cordially.

“Enigmatical, as usual!” he said—­“You and Santoris ought to be congenial spirits!”

“Perhaps we are!” I answered, carelessly, as I left him;—­“Stranger things than that have happened!”

XII

A LOVE-LETTER

To those who are ignorant of, or indifferent to, the psychic forces working behind all humanity and creating the causes which evolve into effect, it cannot but seem strange,—­even eccentric and abnormal,—­that any one person, or any two persons for that matter, should take the trouble to try and ascertain the immediate intention and ultimate object of their lives.  The daily routine of ordinary working, feeding and sleeping existence, varied by little social conventions and obligations which form a kind of break to the persistent monotony of the regular treadmill round, should be, they think, sufficient for any sane, well-balanced, self-respecting creature,—­and if a man