40+ Adventure Novels & Lost World Mysteries in One Premium Edition. Henry Rider Haggard

perhaps, after all, this terrible misfortune may lead you to something better. Thank God, there is forgiveness for us all."

      Her words touched some forgotten chord in the stricken woman's heart, and two big tears rolled down the frozen cheeks. They were the first Anne Bellamy had wept for many a day.

      "Your voice," she said, "has a music that awakes the echoes from a time when I was good and pure like you, but that time has gone for ever."

      "Surely, Lady Bellamy, the heart that can remember it can also strive to reach another like it. If you have descended the cliff whence those echoes spring, into a valley however deep, there is still another cliff before you that you may climb."

      "It is easy to descend, but we need wings to climb. Look at me, Angela; my body is not more crippled and shorn of power than my dark spirit is of wings. How can I climb?"

      Angela bent low beside her and whispered a few words in her ear, then rose with a shy blush upon her face. Lady Bellamy shut her eyes. Presently she opened them again.

      "Do not speak any more of this to me now," she said. "I must have time. The instinct of years cannot be brushed away in a day. If you knew all the sins I have committed, perhaps you would think too that for such as I am there is no forgiveness and no hope."

      "Whilst there is life there is hope, and, as I once heard Mr. Fraser say, the real key to forgiveness is the desire to be forgiven."

      Again Lady Bellamy shut her eyes and thought, and, when she drew up their heavy lids, Angela saw that there was something of a peaceful look about them.

      "Stand so," she said to Angela, "there where the light falls upon your face. That will do; now shall I tell you what I read there? On your forehead sit resolute power to grasp, and almost measureless capacity to imagine; in your eyes there is a sympathy not to be guessed by beings of a coarser fibre; those eyes could look at Heaven and not be dazzled. Your whole face speaks of a purity and single-mindedness which I can read but cannot understand. Your mind rejects the glittering bubbles that men follow, and seeks the solid truth. Your spirit is in tune with things of light and air; it can float to the extremest heights of our mental atmosphere, and thence can almost gaze into the infinite beyond. Pure, but not cold, thirsting for a wider knowledge, and at times breathing the air of a higher world; resolute, but patient; proud, and yet humble to learn; holy, but aspiring; conscious of gifts you do not know how to use, girl, you rise as near to what is divine as a mortal may. I have always thought so, now I am sure of it."

      "Lady Bellamy!"

      "Hush! I have a reason for what I say. I do not ask you to waste time by listening to senseless panegyrics. Listen: I will tell you what I have never told to a living soul before. For years I have been a student of a lore almost forgotten in this country—a lore which once fully acquired will put the powers that lie hid in Nature at the command of its possessor, that will even enable him to look beyond Nature, and perhaps, so far as the duration of existence is concerned, for awhile to triumph over it. That lore you can learn, though it baffled me. My intellect and determination enabled me to find the cues to it, and to stumble on some of its secrets, but I could not follow them; too late I learnt that only the good and pure can do that. Much of the result of years of toil I destroyed the other night, but I still know enough to empower you to reconstruct what I annihilated; you can learn more in one year than I learnt in ten. I am grateful to you, and, if you wish it, I will show you the way."

      Angela listened, open-eyed. Lady Bellamy was right, she was greedy of knowledge and the power that springs from knowledge.

      "But would it not be wrong?" she said.

      "There can be nothing wrong in what the ruling Wisdom allows us to acquire without the help of what is evil. But do not be deceived, such knowledge and power as this is not a thing to be trifled with. To obtain a mastery over it, you must devote your life to it; you must give it

      "'Allegiance whole, not strained to suit desire,'

      "No earthly passion must come to trouble the fixed serenity of your aspirations; that was one, but only one, of the reasons of my failure. You must leave your Arthur to Mrs. Carr, and henceforward put him as much out of your mind as possible; and this, that you may be able to separate yourself from earthly bonds and hopes and fears. Troubled waters reflect a broken image."

      "I must, then, choose between this knowledge and my love?"

      "Yes; and you will do well if you choose the knowledge; for, before you die—if, indeed, you do not in the end, for a certain period, overcome even death—you will be more of an angel than a woman. On the one hand, then, this proud and dizzy destiny awaits you; on the other, every-day joys and sorrows shared by all the world, and an ordinary attachment to a man against whom I have, indeed, nothing to say, but who is not your equal, and who is, at the best, full of weaknesses that you should despise."

      "But, Lady Bellamy, his weaknesses are a part of himself, and I love him all, just as he is; weakness needs love more than what is strong."

      "Perhaps; but, in return for your love, I offer you no empty cup. I do not ask you to follow fantastic theories—of that I will soon convince you. Shall I show you the semblance of your Arthur and Mrs. Carr as they are at this moment?"

      "No, Lady Bellamy, no, I have chosen. You offer, after years of devotion, to make me almost like an angel. The temptation is very great, and it fascinates me. But I hope, if I can succeed in living a good life, to become altogether an angel when I die. Why, then, should I attempt to filch fragments of a knowledge that will one day be all my own?—if, indeed, it is right to do so. Whilst I am here, Arthur's love is more to me than such knowledge can ever be. If he is married, I may learn to think differently, and try to soothe my mind by forcing it to run in these hidden grooves. Till then, I choose Arthur and my petty hopes and fears; for, after all, they are the natural heritage of my humanity."

      Lady Bellamy thought for awhile, and answered,

      "I begin to think that the Great Power who made us has mixed even His most perfect works with an element of weakness, lest they should soar too high, and see too far. The prick of a pin will bring a balloon to earth, and an earthly passion, Angela, will prevent you from soaring to the clouds. So be it. You have had your chance. It is only one more disappointment."

      CHAPTER LXX

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      Angela went home very thoughtful. The next three days she spent in writing. First, she wrote a clear and methodical account of all the events that had happened since Arthur's first departure, more than a year ago, and attached to it copies of the various documents that had passed between herself and George, including one of the undertaking that her husband had signed before the marriage. This account was in the form of a statement, which she signed, and, taking it to Mr. Fraser, read it to him, and got him to sign it too. It took her two whole days to write, and, when it was done, she labelled it "to be read first." On the third day she wrote the following letter to go with the statement:

      "For the first time in my life, Arthur, I take up my pen to write to you, and in truth the difficulty of the task before me, as well as my own want of skill, tends to bewilder me, and, though I have much upon my mind to say, I scarcely know if it will reach you—if, indeed, this letter is ever destined to lie open in your hands—in an intelligible form.

      "The statement that I enclose, however, will—in case you do not already know them—tell you all the details of what has happened since you left me more than a year ago. From it you will learn how cruelly I was deceived into marrying George Caresfoot, believing you dead. Oh, through all eternity, never shall I forget that fearful night, nor cease to thank God for my merciful escape from the fiend whom I had married. And then came the morning, and brought you—the dead—alive before my eyes. And whilst I stood in the first tumult of my amaze— forgetful of everything but that it was you, my own, my beloved Arthur, no spirit, but you in flesh and blood—whilst I yet stood thus, stricken to silence by the shock of an unutterable joy—you broke upon me with those dreadful words, so that I