Florence L. Barclay

“ Striding about the room will not wake you, because this is no dream. It is blessed, blessed reality. Listen, Nigel! Listen, belovèd! I will make it all quite clear.”
She rose, poured out a glass of wine and brought it to him.
“Drink this. How your hand shakes!... No; I will not touch you; but I beg of you to drink it.”
She crossed the room, unlocked a bureau, took from it a despatch-box and placed it beside her on the couch.
“Now help me to tell you by listening calmly.
“We had three years of most perfect married life. No woman ever had such a lover, such a husband, as you were to me. ”

“ He drew her wedding-ring from his finger, slipped it back to its rightful place, and laid his lips on ring and finger together.
“I love you utterly,” he said, “and I hold you mine for ever.”
“Nigel, my husband, this time it is I who go, and you who remain behind. You will be braver than I.”
“My own,” he answered, “we shall be together in the place where alone true joys are to be found; safe within the circle of the Will of God. Since I left you and went out into the sunrise, I, who before was empty, have become rich beyond all human comprehension in the possession of three different memories. ”

“ I remember the precious love which was ours in the life before, and, remembering that, my heart has grown so rich that I care not to remember aught else of that life, but just the utter sweetness of our wedded love. ”

“ And all the while her flood of tenderness poured over him. It was as if his helplessness had broken down all barriers, his loss of consciousness had burst the 134bonds of her reserve. The love and longing of those thirty years throbbed in her clasping arms.
“My Love, my own! Don’t go from me again. Ah, when you wake you will remember all! Nigel, you will remember.”
She held him closer to her breast. He felt the desperate strength in those poor clinging arms.
“Dear God, when he awakes, he will remember! He will call his own wife by her name. He will know all at last. At last he will remember.” ”

“ But, my belovèd, however hard you find it to bear the sudden silence, however much you long for just one word, one sign—never turn to a spiritualistic medium, or to spiritualism in any form. I hold that thing to be a most damnable device of the Devil’s for bamboozling the minds of men; leading stricken hearts to believe they are holding converse with their Dead, when, in reality, demons intervene and whisper foolish nothings, till they trap the soul, confuse the mind, and wreck the moral and spiritual life. ”

“ Then ‘When He bringeth in the first begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him’—the scene on Bethlehem’s hills. By degrees that body grows, moulded by the ego within, into the perfect likeness of what a body must ever be, indwelt by the great Ego—the Son of God. He is seen by angels, and recognised. He is seen by demons, and recognised. He is seen by Moses and Elijah on the holy mount and, undoubtedly, recognised. ”

“ It was because—at last—at last—it was Home.”
85The woman on the couch opened wide her arms and leaned toward him with a movement of extraordinary tenderness. Her face was illumined by a radiance almost unearthly in its sublime joy.
“It was Home,” she said. “It is Home. Ah, do you not remember, belovèd? Never call yourself Luke Sparrow again. Never call yourself a foundling—you, whom I have found at last! I can tell you your name, if there be still need to tell it: Nigel Guido Cardross Tintagel.” ”

“ As I say to Mary, there are always dispensations! But he has gone down to the house now. And you were noticed at the grave. There will be talk in every home by nightfall. Douglas saw you, and Fergusson and old Nannie Steer. You remember them, Sir Nigel?”
No. The sub-conscious well was rapidly growing deeper, its memories more elusive. Douglas, Fergusson, old Nannie Steer, conveyed nothing to him. Only his Treasure in the heavens was inalienably his own. But he began to realise how largely his sub-consciousness had drawn from hers. ”

“ The sea roared and pounded against the rocks at the base of the cliff.
“I stood in the wind-swept darkness and lifted my eyes to the distant stars.
“‘Nigel!’ I called aloud: ‘Oh, Nigel, my lover, my husband, come back to earth! Come out of Eternity, back into Time. I cannot live on this earth without you. You promised—you promised to come from fifty 120fathoms deep, if I called. NIGEL! COME! Ask to be born once more. Then grow up quickly, and seek, and seek, and seek, belovèd, until you find me. Nigel, your own wife calls! Oh, Nigel! ”

“ Nigel’s parents talked together.
She sat silent, looking down at the small face against her breast.
It struck him that there was an aloofness about her, a loneliness which almost matched his own. Tragedy had laid its mark upon that noble face; a sorrow borne in patient silence; an agony unshared; a grief too deep to be plumbed by human sympathy.
It seemed to the Lonely Man that his loneliness would be easier to bear, for having looked upon her; his “Returned Empty” life would hold more possibility of fulness ”

“ Six days later a ship’s boat plunges through the breakers containing six bodies, apparently dead from hunger and thirst—but one breathes, a woman. Face to face with the eternal impulses of life, these three souls, completely isolated from the civilized world, work out their destiny through the instincts and impulses of primitive man. ”

“ Ten months later Luke Sparrow, erect and vigorous, in the khaki uniform which had begun to mean so much to England, stood on his study hearth-rug, giving final instructions to his old servant.
“I’m in luck, Thomas. So early in the day; but I lost no time, and it’s France for me to-morrow; and, please God, that means Belgium, and in the thick of it. You will look after things, till I get back. Don’t let Mary fret. Give her a cheerful time.
“If I don’t return, my things will come back to you. My will is in that drawer. Everything will belong to you two faithful souls. ”

“ When we go home to that great Dwelling Place, our holy passion is to do His Will. All earthly things—loves, hopes, desires—assume their right proportions. The one Essential is the great Will of God—that He in us, by us, through us, may in all things be glorified. ”

“ Often you dived into the bottomless deep of waters. Then your anxious wife could see nothing but an expanse of sky and ocean. After what seemed an hour of suspense, you would re-appear in the sparkling ripples, laughing, shaking the salt water from your eyes, and bounding along with the strength and grace of a splendid 90sea-lion. Then I would breathe again and slip back to bed as you neared the shore and I lost you under the lee of the cliff.
“But, when you came back to my arms, I used to hold you close to my beating heart and say: ‘Oh, Nigel, my dearest! ”

“ Yet we may meet again on earth, if it be God’s will for us, before we spend our 102great Eternity together. We have often talked of this. You know how firmly we believe that we have met before, in other times, in other climes; that we have lived and loved, striven together, risen together to God’s great purposes of fresh development. We may yet meet again in Time; find each other, know each other; ‘rise, on stepping-stones of our dead selves, to higher things.’ Many adventures into Time may be necessary to our full completion for Eternity. ”

“ W. W. Tarn
8o An exquisite fantasy contrived with delicious humor with a lovable small heroine who has “a warm heart and a largish size in shoes”—a tale of utmost charm and much of the lore of the East and West that has filled the story-books of the world. Here is a magic which calls to young and old alike. You will love Fiona and her father the Student and undoubtedly you will be well disposed toward the Urchin—but whether you will care for Jeconiah—well you must decide that for yourself. ”

“ God’s Will, the very air we breathe. The passionate desire of every soul, freed from the earthly prison of the flesh, is to return that love, to do that Will. The Son of God, walking the earth as man—though emptied, for the time being, of His eternal memory—remembered this, and gave His fellow men the perfect prayer: ‘Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven.’ When that prayer finds its complete fulfilment, earth’s hard perplexities will all be solved, earth’s tears all wiped away. His perfect Will ensures man’s perfect 196joy. ”

“ She talked of the beauty of the surrounding country; the wild hills, the heather; the pine woods, full of health-giving fragrance.
He told her of his walking tours.
“It is the only holiday I care for; to walk and walk, alone with Nature, from sunrise to sunset. Usually I reach an inn, 67by nightfall; but it does not trouble me if I don’t. On warm nights, I would just as soon sleep in the open.” He looked up, with the rare smile which softened his face into extraordinary sweetness. “I am afraid you are harbouring a tramp, Lady Tintagel.” ”

“ A narrow path, skirting the edge of the cliffs, all among the pungent fragrance of gorse and heather and yellow bracken.
Along this path, on a warm September evening, swung a solitary figure; a man with sad eyes, feeling himself a blot upon the landscape, yet drinking in every tint of sunset glory, every wild wonder of snowy 16wings, every whiff of crushed fragrance. And, as he walked, the water down below seemed to call to him in a silent chorus of sparkling voices: “This is the way to the City of Gold. Leap from the cliff! ”

“ Luke Sparrow’s comrades came back and stooped to read what was written on a card attached to the wreath.
“Hullo!” said one, “The old chap has made a mistake. See here!”
To
Sir Nigel Guido Cardross Tintagel, Bart.,
in faithful and loving remembrance
from his humble servants
Mary and Thomas
Greater love hath no man than this: that a
man lay down his life for his friends. “Leave it alone,” said the other soldier. “He was worth a score of barts! Let him keep the wreath.” ”

“ You believed that the sub-conscious mind is an eternal thing, and holds stored within it every detail of every episode in every incarnation, be they many or few. But the conscious mind and memory, being dependent upon the growth and development of the actual physical brain, knows and remembers the happenings of that body’s life, only. The sub-conscious mind cannot be drawn upon consciously ”

“ Love being so largely a matter of the sub-consciousness, lovers are quick to find and to recognise one another, when they meet again reincarnate. This accounts for the sudden instinctive attraction known as ‘love at first sight.’ It is, in reality, two faithful lovers hailing one another with joy 115and delight by the unconscious means of the sub-conscious memory. After marriage this sub-conscious memory may become an exquisite certainty, adding a richness to the bliss of newly-wedded love.
“Great gifts can also be handed up to the new body from the sub-conscious ego. ”

“ No; the ego, in its changeless consistency, has done its perfect work. Whether ‘in the beginning, with God,’ or born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem’s stable, or ascending triumphant ‘far above all principality, 113and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come’—He is, in outward appearance, as well as in nature and character, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. ”

“ I am all your own, and I hold you mine for ever.... We may meet again on earth, if it be God’s will for us.’ I knew you meant by this, a fresh incarnation for both; but I could not see why I must wait during long, lonely years, or why death must come first.
118“I began to pray with desperate, frantic energy that my darling might come back without delay.
“A wild, sweet joy and comfort came to soothe my agony.
“I walked along the shore and prayed aloud. I roamed the moors in paroxysms of petition. I prayed all night. ”

“ We shall not be wanted. We know too much about our lady’s ways and wishes. Pipes in the Oak Room she never did allow, nor whisky and soda in the morning. Her ladyship’s last word to me was: ‘If possible, go with Sir Nigel, Thomas, you and Mary. You know his ways, and I would like to feel Mary was there to do his mending and airing, and see that he has properly cooked meals.’ Our dear lady has left an annuity of two hundred a year between us, and we have our savings, and no encumbrances, thank God. It isn’t a question of wages ”

“ You held that, though the actual physical body of a child is prepared by his parents, according to nature’s laws, his spirit—his ego—comes direct from God, entering the body, at the moment of birth, with the first independent breath the baby draws. ‘God breathed into his nostrils 110the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ This followed the forming of the body. ”

“ A born musician is one who, having become a great musician before by means of long study and practice, is re-born rich in the possession of the gift of musical expression. A born orator has been a practised speaker in a former life, and now, without knowing that he does so, draws freely on his sub-conciousness for inspiration.
“Genius is the natural intellect so attuned to the sub-conscious mind that its fount of inspiration flows through it unhindered. ”

“ He fought and struck the water, then straightened out and lay upon his back, heaving, breathing; breathing, heaving; gasping with closed eyes; then quite still, resting; a weary child upon its mother’s breast; a lover in the tender arms of his belovèd. The water rocked him gently. So near he seemed. She clung to the telescope, speaking softly to him.
“Nigel, my dearest, God has heard my 169prayer. Rest there, dear Heart. The arms of Eternal Love are beneath you. Oh, if the wish to live returns, you will be given strength to reach the shore. Heart of my heart, my life for yours ”

“ His lungs expanded; his sight cleared; his heart beat more steadily.
“Oh, belovèd! Miriam! Miriam! Are you there? All else is a dream, save our great love, my perfect, perfect mate.”
159Slowly he turned and looked toward the shore.
Far away, so far away; but he could see the line of cliffs and the house—his home and hers—standing clear against the fir woods. The upper windows seemed on fire, as they reflected the gold of the sunrise.
He measured the distance between himself and the shore. Could he swim it?
He started a slow breast stroke, his eyes upon those flaming windows. ”

“ Why do fine chaps such as he, throw away their lives for worthless young women; couldn’t sail a boat; better drowned. Thousand pities. So she watches the sea and, I suppose, saw you in difficulties. Gave her a shock; brought back the scene. Thomas and his wife are very close; told me nothing. But her maid—nice girl—said she shrieked: ‘Sir Nigel is drowning below the cliff; a boat! a rope!’ Poor soul! Sane enough, now; but heart done for.”
“May I see her?”
186“Why not? She keeps asking for you, so Mrs. Thomas tells me. She will be gone at once, if she makes any effort or sits up. ”