THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
OTHER WORKS BY
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
JULIUS LEVALLON
THE WAVE : An Egyptian Aftermath
TEN MINUTE STORIES
DAY AND NIGHT STORIES
THE PROMISE OF AIR
THE GARDEN OF SURVIVAL
THE LISTENER and Other Stories
THE EMPTY HOUSE and Other Stories
THE LOST VALLEY and Other Stories
JOHN SILENCE : Physician Extraordinary
With Violet Pearn
KARMA : A Reincarnation Play
With Wilfred Wilson
THE WOLVES OF GOD and other Fey
Stories
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
THE
BRIGHT MESSENGER
BY
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
AUTHOR OF
" JULIUS LEVALLON," " THE WOLVES OF GOD," ETC.
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
68 1 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright 1922, by
E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY
All Right* Reserved
Printed tn the United State* of America
the Unstable
2078470
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
CHAPTER I
EDWARD FILLERY, so far as may be possible to a
man of normal passions and emotions, took a detached
view of life and human nature. At the age of thirty-eight
he still remained a spectator, a searching, critical, analytical,
yet chiefly, perhaps, a sympathetic spectator, before the
great performance whose stage is the planet and whose
performers and auditorium are humanity.
Knowing himself outcast, an unwelcome deadhead at
the play, he had yet felt no bitterness against the parents
whose fierce illicit passion had deprived him of an honour-
able seat. The first shock of resentment over, he had faced
the situation with a tolerance which showed an unusual
charity, an exceptional understanding, in one so young.
He was twenty when he learned the truth about him-
self. And it was his wondering analysis as to why two
loving humans could be so careless of their offspring's
welfare, when the rest of Nature took such pains in the
matter, that first betrayed, perhaps, his natural aptitude.
He had the innate gift of seeing things as they were,
undisturbed by personal emotion, while yet asking himself
with scientific accuracy why and how they came to be
so. These were invaluable qualities in the line of knowledge
and research he chose for himself as psychologist and
doctor. The terms are somewhat loose. His longing was
to probe the motives of conduct in the first place, and, in
the second, to correct the results of wrong conduct by
2 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
removing faulty motives. Psychiatrist and healer, there-
fore, were his more accurate titles; psychiatrist and healer,
in due course, he became.
His father, an engineer of ability and enterprise, pros-
pecting in the remoter parts of the Caucasus for copper,
and making a comfortable fortune in so doing, was carried
off his feet suddenly by the beauty of a Khaketian peasant
girl, daughter of a shepherd in these lonely and majestic
mountains, whose intolerable grandeur may well intoxicate
a man to madness. A dangerous and disgraceful episode
it seems to have been between John Fillery, hitherto of
steady moral fibre, and this strange, lovely pagan girl,
whose savage father hunted the pair of them high and low
for weeks before they finally eluded him in the azalea
valleys beyond Artvine.
Great passion, possibly great love, born of this enchanted
land whose peaks touch heaven, while their lower turfy
slopes are carpeted with lilies, azaleas, rhododendrons, con-
tributed to the birth of Edward, who first saw the light in
a secret chamber of a dirty Tiflis house, above the Koura
torrent. That same night, when the sun dipped beneath
the Black Sea waters two hundred miles to the westward,
his mother had looked for the last time upon her northern
lover and her wild Caucasian mountains.
Edward, however, persisted, visible emblem of a few
weeks' primal passion in a primal land. Intense desire,
born in this remote wilderness of amazing loveliness, lent
him, perhaps, a strain of illicit, almost unearthly yearning,
a secret nostalgia for some lost vale of beauty that held
fiercer sunshine, mightier winds and fairer flowers than
those he knew in this world.
At the age of four he was brought to England ; his
Russian memories faded, though not the birthright of his
primitive blood. Settling in London, his father increased
his fortune as consulting engineer, but did not marry. To
the short vehement episode he had given of his very best;
he remained true to his gorgeous memory and his sin; the
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 3
cream of his life, its essence and its perfume, had been
spent in those wild wind-swept azalea valleys beyond
Artvine. The azalea honey was in his blood, the scent of
the lilies in his brain; he still heard the Koura and Rion
foaming down towards ancient Colchis. Edward embodied
for him the spirit of these sweet, passionate memories. He
loved the boy, he cherished and he spoilt him.
But Edward had stuff in him that rendered spoiling
harmless. A vigorous, independent youngster, he showed
firmness and character as a lad. To the delight of his
father he knew his own mind early, reading and studying
on his own account, possessed at the same time by a
vehement love of nature and outdoor life that was far
more than the average English boy's inclination to open
air and sport. There lay some primal quality in his blood
that was of ancient origin and leaned towards wildness.
There seemed almost, at the same time, a faunish strain
that turned away from life.
As a tiny little fellow he had that strange touch of
creative imagination other children have also known an
invisible playmate. It had no name, as it, apparently, had
no sex. The boy's father could trace it directly to no fairy
tale read or heard; its origin in the child's mind remained
a mystery. But its characteristics were unusual, even for
such fanciful imaginings : too full-fledged to have been
created gradually by the boy's loneliness, it seemed half
goblin and half Nature-spirit; it replaced, at any rate, the
little brothers and sisters who were not there, and the
father, led by his conscience, possibly, to divine or half
divine its origin, met the pretence with sympathetic encour-
agement.
It came usually with the wind, moreover, and went with
the wind, and wind accordingly excited the child. "Listen !
Father !" he would exclaim when no air was moving any-
where and the day was still as death. Then: "Plop! So
there you are!" as though it had dropped through empty
space and landed at his feet. "It came from a tremenjus
4 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
height," the child explained. "The wind's up there, you
see, to-day." Which struck the parent's mind as odd, be-
cause it proved later true. An upper wind, far in the
higher strata of air, came down an hour or so afterwards
and blew into a storm.
Fire and flowers, too, were connected with this invisible
playmate. "He'll make it burn, father," the child said
convincingly, when the chimney smoked and the coals
refused to catch, and then became very busy with his friend
in the grate and about the hearth, just as though he helped
and superintended what was being invisibly accomplished.
"It's burning better, anyhow," agreed the father, astonished
in spite of himself as the coals began to glow and spurt
their gassy flames. "Well done; I am very much obliged
to you and your little friend."
"But it's the only thing he can do. He likes it. It's
his work really, don't you see keeping up the heat in
things."
"Oh, it's his natural job, is it? I see, yes. But my
thanks to him, all the same."
"Thank you very much," said grave Edward, aged five,
addressing his tiny friend among the fire-irons. "I'm much
mobliged to you."
Edward was a bit older when the flower incident took
place with the geranium that no amount of care and
coaxing seemed able to keep alive. It had been dying slowly
for some days, when Edward announced that he saw its
"inside" flitting about the plant, but unable to get back
into it. "It's got out, you see, and can't get back into its
body again, so it's dying."
"Well, what in the world are we to do about it?" asked
his father.
"I'll ask," was the solemn reply. "Now I know!" he
cried, delighted, after asking his question of the empty
air and listening for the answer. "Of course. Now I see.
Look, father, there it is its spirit!" He stood beside the
flower and pointed to the earth in the pot.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 5
"Dear me, yes! Where d'you see it? I don't see it
quite."
"He says I can pick it up and put it back and then the
flower will live." The child put out a hand as though
picking up something that moved quickly about the stem.
"What's it look like?" asked his father quickly.
"Oh, sort of trinangles and things with lines and corners,"
was the reply, making a gesture as though he caught it
and popped it back into the red drooping blossoms. "There
you are ! Now you're alive again. Thank you very much,
please" this last remark to the invisible playmate who
was superintending.
"A sort of geometrical figure, was it?" inquired the
father next day, when, to his surprise, he found the
geranium blooming in full health and beauty once again.
"That's what you saw, eh ?"
"It was its spirit, and it was shiny red, like fire," the
child replied. "It's heat. Without these things there'd be
no flowers at all."
"Who makes everything grow?" he asked suddenly, a
moment later.
"You mean what makes them grow."
"Who," he repeated with emphasis. "Who builds the
bodies up and looks after them?"
"Ah ! the structure, you mean, the form ?"
Edward nodded. His father had the feeling he was not
being asked for information, but was being cross-examined.
A faint pressure, as of uneasiness, touched him.
"They develop automatically that means naturally,
under the laws of nature," he replied.
"And the laws who keeps them working properly?"
The father, with a mental gulp, replied that God did.
"A beetle's body, for instance, or a daisy's or an
elephant's?" persisted the child undeceived by the theolog-
ical evasion. "Or mine, or a mountain's ?"
John Fillery racked his brain for an answer, while
Edward continued his list to include sea-anemones, frost-
6 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
patterns, fire, wind, moon, sun and stars. All these forms
to him were bodies apparently.
"I know !" he exclaimed suddenly with intense convic-
tion, clapping his hands together and standing on his toes.
"Do you, indeed! Then you know more than the rest
of us."
"They do, of course," came the positive announcement.
"The other kind! It's their work. Yours, for instance"
he turned to his playmate, but so naturally and convinc-
ingly that a chill ran down his father's spine as he watched
"is fire, isn't it ? You showed me once. And water stops
you, but wind helps you ..." and he continued long after
his father had left the room.
With advancing years, however, Edward either forgot
his playmate or kept its activities to himself. He no longer
referred to it, at any rate. His energies demanded a bigger
field; he roamed the fields and woods, climbed the hills,
stayed out all night to see the sunrise, made fires even when
fires were not exactly needed, and hunted with Red Indians
and with what he called "Windy-Fire people" everywhere.
He was never hi the house. He ran wild. Great open
spaces, trees and flowers were what he liked. The sea,
on the other hand, alarmed him. Only wind and fire
comforted him and made him happy and full of life. He
was a playmate of wind and fire. Water, in large quantities
at any rate, was inimical.
With concealed approval, masking a deep love fulfilled
yet incomplete, his father watched the growth of this fiercer
strain that mere covert shooting could not satisfy, nor
ordinary sporting holidays appease.
"England's too small for you, Edward, isn't it ?" he asked
once tentatively, when the boy was about fifteen.
"The English people, you mean, father?"
"You find them dull, don't you? And the island a bit
cramped eh ?"
Edward waited without replying. He did not quite under-
stand what his indulgent father intended, or was leading
up to.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 7
"You'd like to travel and see things and people for your-
self, I mean?"
He watched the boy without, as he thought, the latter
noticing. The answer pleased but puzzled him.
"We're all much the same, aren't we?" said Ed-
ward.
"Well with differences yes, we are. But still "
"It's only the same over and over again, isn't it ?" Then,
while his father was thinking of this reply, and of what
he should say to it, the boy asked suddenly with arresting
intensity :
"Are we the only people the only sort of beings, I
mean? Just men and women like us all over the world?
No others of any sort bigger, for instance, or more wild
and wonderful?" Then he added, a thrust of strange
yearning in his face and eyes: "More beautiful?" He
almost whispered the last words.
His father winced. He divined the origin of that strange
inquiry. Upon those immense and lonely mountains, distant
in space and time for him, imagination, rich and pagan,
ran, he well knew, to vast and mighty beings, superior to
human, benignant and maleficent, akin to the stimulating
and exhilarating conception of the gods, and certainly non-
human.
"Nothing, Edward, that we know of. Why should there
be?"
"Oh, I don't know, dad, I just wondered sometimes.
But, as you say, we've not a scrap of evidence, of course."
"Not a scrap," agreed his father. "Poetic legends ain't
evidence."
The mind ruled the heart in Edward ; he had his father's
brains, at any rate ; and all his powers and longings focused
in a single line that indicated plainly what his career should
be. The Public Schools could help him little; he went to
Edinburgh to study medicine; he passed eventually with
all possible honours; and the day he brought home the
news his father, dying, told him the secret of his illegitimate
birth.
CHAPTER II
THE subsequent twenty years or so may be sum-
marized.
Alone in the world, of a loving, passionate nature, he
deliberately set all thought of marriage on one side as an
impossibility, and directed his entire energy into the acquire-
ment of knowledge; reading, studying, experimenting far
outside the circle of the ordinary medical man. The attitude
of detachment he had adopted became a habit. He be-
lieved it was now his nature.
The more he learned of human frailty and human facul-
ties, the greater became the charity he felt towards his
fellow-kind. In his own being, it seemed, lay something
big, sweet, simple, a generosity that longed to share with
others, a tolerance more ready to acquit than to condemn,
above all, a great gift of understanding sympathy that,
doubtless, was the explanation of his singular insight.
Rarely he found it in him to blame; forgiveness, based
upon the increasing extent of his experience, seemed his
natural view of human mistakes and human infirmities.
His one desire, his one hope, was to serve the Race.
Yet he himself remained aloof. He watched the Play
but took no part in it. This forgiveness, too, began at
home. His grievance had not soured or dejected him, his
father's error presenting itself as a problem to be pondered
over, rather than a sin to blame. Some day, he promised
himself, he would go and see with his own eyes the
Khaketian tribe whence his blood was partially derived,
whence his un-English yearnings for a wilder scale of
personal freedom amid an unstained, majestic Nature were
first stolen. The inherited picture of a Caucasian vale of
loveliness and liberty lay, indeed, very deep in his nature,
8
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 9
emerging always like a symbol when he was profoundly
moved. At any crisis in his life it rose beckoning, seductive,
haunting beyond words . . . Curious, ill-defined emotions
with it, that drove him towards another standard, another
state, to something, at any rate, he could neither name nor
visualize, yet that seemed to dwarf the only life he knew.
About it was a touch of strange unearthly radiance that
dimmed existence as he knew it. The shine went out of
it. There was involved in this symbolic "Valley" some-
thing wholly new both in colour, sound and outline, yet
that remained obstinately outside definition.
First, however, he must work, develop himself, and
broaden, deepen, extend in every possible way the knowledge
of his kind that seemed his only love.
He began in a very practical way, setting up his plate
in a mean quarter of the great metropolis, healing, helping,
learning with his heart as well as with his brain, observing
life at closest quarters from its beginning to its close, his
sympathies becoming enriched the more he saw, and his
mind groping its way towards clearer insight the more he
read, thought, studied. His wealth made him independent;
his tastes were simple; his wants few. He observed the
great Play from the Pit and Gallery, from the Wings,
from Behind the Scenes as well.
Moving then, into the Stalls, into a wealthier neighbour-
hood, that is, he repeated the experience among another
class, finding, however, little difference except in the greater
artificiality of his types, the larger proportion of mental
and nervous ailments, of hysteria, delusion, imaginary
troubles, and the like. The infirmities due to idleness,
enflamed vanity and luxury offered a new field, though to
him a less attractive one. The farther from simplicity,
from the raw facts of living, the more complicated, yet
the more trivial, the resulting disabilities. These, however,
were quite as real as those, and harder, indeed, to cure.
Idle imagination, fostered by opportunity and means, yet
forced by conventionality to wear infinite disguises, brought
10 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
a strange, if far from a noble, crop of disorders into his
ken. Yet he accepted them for serious treatment, whatever
his private opinion may have been, while his patience, tact
and sympathy, backed by his insight and great knowledge,
brought him quick success. He was soon in a fair way to
become a fashionable doctor.
But the field, he found, was restricted somewhat. His
quest was knowledge, not fame or money. He chose his
cases where he could, though actually refusing nothing. He
specialized more and more with afflictions of a mental kind.
He was immensely successful in restoring proportion out
of disorder. He revealed people to themselves. He taught
them to recover lost hope and confidence. He used little
medicine, but stimulated the will towards a revival of fad-
ing vitality. Auto-suggestion, rather than suggestion or
hypnotism, was his method. He healed. He began to be
talked about.
Then, suddenly, his house was sold, his plate was taken
down, he vanished.
Human beings object to sudden changes whose secret
they have not been told and cannot easily guess ; his abrupt
disappearance caused talk and rumours, led, of course, by
those, chiefly disappointed women, who had most reason
to be grateful for past services. But, if the words charlatan
and quack were whispered, he did not hear them; he had
taken the post of assistant in a lunatic asylum in a northern
town, because the work promised him increase of knowledge
and experience in his own particular field. The talk he left
behind him mattered as little as the small pay attached
to the humble duties he had accepted.
London forgot him, but he did not forget what London
had taught him.
A new field opened, and in less than two years, oppor-
tunity, combined with his undoubted qualifications, saw
him Head of an establishment where he could observe at
first hand the facts and phenomena that interested him
most. Humane treatment, backed by profound insight into
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 11
the derangements of the poor human creatures under his
charge, brought the place into a fame it had never known
before. He spent five years there in profound study and
experiment; he achieved new results and published them.
His Experimental Psychology caused a sensation. His
name was known. He was an Authority.
At this time he was well past thirty, a tall, dark, dis-
tinguished-looking man, of appearance grave and even
sombre; imposing, too, with his quiet, piercing eyes, but
sombre only until the smile lit up his somewhat rugged
face. It was a face that nobody could lie to, but to that
smile the suffering heart might tell its inmost secrets with
confidence, hope, trust, and without reserve.
There followed several years abroad, in Paris, Rome,
St. Petersburg, Moscow ; Vienna and Zurich he also visited
to test there certain lines of research and to meet personally
their originators.
This period was partly a holiday, partly an opportunity
to know at first hand the leaders in mental therapeutics,
psychology and the rest, and also that he might find time
to digest and arrange his own accumulation of knowledge
with a view, later, to undertaking the life-work to which
his previous experience was but preliminary. Fame had
come to him unsought; his published works alone ensured
his going down to posterity as a careful but daring and
original judge of the human species and its possibilities.
It was the supernormal rather than the merely abnormal
powers that attracted him. In the subconscious, as, equally,
in the superconscious, his deep experience taught him, lay
amazing powers of both moral and physical healing, powers
as yet but little understood, powers as limitless as they
seemed incredible, as mysterious in their operation as they
were simple in their accessibility. And auto-suggestion was
the means of using them. The great men whom he visited
welcomed him with open arms, added to his data, widened
yet further his mental outlook. Sought by high and low
in many countries and in strangest cases, his experience
12 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
grew and multiplied, his assortment of unusual knowledge
was far-reaching ; till he stood finally in wonder and amaze-
ment before the human being and its unrealized powers,
and his optimism concerning the future progress of the
race became more justified with every added fact.
Yet, perhaps, his greatest achievement was the study
of himself ; it was probably to this deep, intimate and honest
research into his own being that his success in helping others
was primarily due. For in himself, though mastered and
co-ordinated by his steady will, rendered harmless by his
saving sense of humour and (as he believed) by the absence
of any harboured grievance against others in his very
own being lay all those potential elements of disorder, those
loose unravelled threads of alien impulse and suppressed
desire, which can make for dangerous disintegration, and
thus produce the disturbing results classed generally under
alienation and neurosis.
The incongruous elements in him were the gift of nature ;
yvwOt a-eavTov was the saving attitude he brought to that
gift, redeeming it. This phrase, borrowed, he remembered
with a smile, for the portal of the ancient Mysteries, re-
mained his watchword. He was able to thank the fierce
illicit love that furnished his body and his mental make-up
for a richer field of first-hand study than years of practice
among others could have supplied. He belonged by tem-
perament to the unstable. But he was aware of it. He
realized the two beings in him: the reasoning, scientific
man, and the speculative dreamer, visionary, poet.. The
latter wondered, dreamed among a totally different set of
values far below and out of sight. This deeper portion
of himself was forever beating up for recognition, clamour-
ing to be used, yet with the strange shyness that reminded
him of a loving woman who cannot be certain her passion
is returned. It hinted, threatened, wept and even sulked.
It rose like a flame, bringing its own light and wind, blessed
his whole being with some divine assurance, and then, be-
cause not instantly accepted, it retired, leaving him empty,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 13
his mind coloured with unearthly yearnings, with poignant
regrets, yet perfumed as though the fairness of Spring
herself had lit upon his heart and kissed it into blossom
on her passage north. It presented its amazing pictures,
and withdrew. Elusive, as the half memory of some radiant
dream, whose wonder and sweetness have been intense to
the point of almost pain, it hovered, floating just out of
reach. It lay waiting for that sincere belief which would
convince that its passion was returned. And a fleeting
picture of a wild Caucasian valley, steeped in sunshine and
flowers, was always the first sign of its awakening.
Though not afraid of reason, it seemed somehow inde-
pendent of the latter's processes. It was his reason, how-
ever, he well knew that dimmed the light in its grand,
terrible eyes, causing it to withdraw the instant he began
to question. Precise, formal thinking shut the engines
off and damped the furnaces. His love, his passion, none
the less, were there, hiding with belief, until some bright
messenger, bringing glad tidings, should reveal the method
of harmonious union between reason and vision, between
man's trivial normal faculties and his astounding super-
normal possibilities.
"This element of feeling in our outlook on Nature is
a satisfaction in itself, but our plea for allowing it to
operate in our interpretation of Nature is that we get closer
to some things through feeling than we do through science.
The tendency of feeling is always to see things whole. We
cannot, for our life's sake, and for the sake of our philo-
sophical reconstruction, afford to lose in scientific analysis
what the poets and artists and the lovers of Nature all see.
It is intuitively felt, rather than intellectually perceived, the
vision of things as totalities, root and all, all in all ; neither
fancifully, nor mystically, but sympathetically in their
wholeness/'
To these words of Professor T. Arthur Thomson's, he
heartily subscribed, applying their principle to his own par-
ticular field.
CHAPTER III
THE net result of his inquiries and research, when, at
the age of nearly forty, he established his own Private
Home for unusual, so-called hopeless cases in North- West
London it was free to all, and as Spiritual Clinique he
thought of it sometimes with a smile may be summed
up in the single sentence that man is greater than he knows,
and that completer realization of his full possibilities lies
accessible to his subconscious and superconscious powers.
Herein he saw, indeed, the chief hope of progress for
humanity.
And it was to the failures, the diseased, the evil and
the broken that he owed chiefly his inspiring optimism,
since it was largely in collapse that occurred the sporadic
upheaval of those super-normal forces which, controlled,
co-ordinated, led, must eventually bring about the realiza-
tion he foresaw.
The purpose, however, of these notes is not to furnish
a sensational story of various patients whom he studied,
healed, or failed to heal. Its object is to give some details
of one case in particular whose outstanding peculiarities
affected his theories and convictions, leaving him open-
minded still, but with a breath of awe in his heart perhaps,
before a possibility his previous knowledge had ruled
entirely out of court, even if which is doubtful he had
ever considered it as a possibility at all.
He had realized early that the individual manifests but
an insignificant portion of his being in his ordinary existence,
the normal self being the tip of his consciousness only,
yet whose fuller expression rises readily to adequate evoca-
tion ; and it was the study of genius, of prodigies, so-called,
14
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 15
and of certain faculties shown sometimes in hysteria, that
led him to believe these were small jets from a sea of power
that might, indeed ought, to be realizable at will. The
phenomena all pointed, he believed, to powers that seemed
as superior to cerebral functions as they were independent
of these.
Man's possible field of being, in other words, seemed
capable of indefinite extension. His heart glowed within
him as he established, step by step, these greater powers.
He dared to foresee a time when the limitations of separate
personality would have been destroyed, and the vast brother-
hood of the race become literally realized, its practical unity
accomplished.
The difficulties were endless and discouraging. The in-
ventive powers of the bigger self, its astonishing faculty
for dramatizing its content in every conceivable form,
blocked everywhere the search for truth.
It could, he found, also detach a portion of its content
into a series of separate personalities, each with its indi-
vidual morals, talents, tendencies, each with its distinct and
separate memory. These fragments it could project, so to
speak, masquerading convincingly as separate entities, using
strange languages, offering detailed knowledge of other
conditions, distant in time and space, suggesting, indeed,
to the unwary that they were due to obsessing spirits, and
leaving the observer in wonder before the potential capacity
of the central self disgorging them.
The human depths included, beyond mere telepathy and
extended telepathy, an expansion of consciousness so vast
as to be, apparently, limitless. The past, on rare occasions
even the future, lay open; the entire planetary memory,
stored with rich and pregnant accumulated experience, was
accessible and shareable. New aspects of space and time
were equally involved. A vision of incredible grandeur
opened gradually before his eyes.
The surface consciousness of to-day was really rather
a trumpery affair; the gross lethargy of the vast majority
16 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
vis a vis the greater possibilities afflicted him. To this
surface consciousness alone was so-called evil possible
as ignorance. As "ugly is only half-way to a thing," so
evil is half-way to good. With the greater powers must
come greater knowledge, shared as by instantaneous wire-
less over the entire planet, and misunderstanding, chief
obstacle to progress always, would be impossible. A huge
unity, sense of oneness must follow. Moral growth would
accompany the increase of faculty. And here and there,
it seemed to him, the surface ice had thawed already a
little; the pressure of the great deeps below caused cracks
and fissures. Auto-suggestion, prototype of all suggestion,
offered mysterious hints of the way to reach the stupendous
underworld, as the Christian Scientists, the miraculous
healers, the New Thought movement, saints, prophets, poets,
artists, were finding out.
The subliminal, to state it shortly, might be the divine.
This was the hope, though not yet the actual belief, that
haunted and inspired him. Behind his personality lurked
this strange gigantic dream, ever beating to get through. . . .
In his Private Home, helping, healing, using his great
gifts of sympathy and insight, he at the same time found
the material for intimate study and legitimate experiment
he sought. The building had been altered to suit his exact
requirements; there were private suites, each with its door
and staircase to the street ; one part of it provided his own
living quarters, shut off entirely from the patients' side;
in another, equally cut off and self-contained, yet within
easy communication of his own rooms, lived Paul Devon-
ham, his valued young assistant. There was a third private
suite as well. The entire expenses he defrayed himself.
Here, then, for a year or two he worked indefatigably,
with the measure of success and failure he anticipated;
here he dreamed his great dream of the future of the race,
in whose progress and infinite capacities he hopefully be-
lieved. Work was his love, the advancement of humanity
his god. The war availed itself of his great powers, as
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 17
also of his ready-made establishment, both of which he gave
without a thought of self. New material came as well
from the battlefields into his ken.
The effect of the terrible five years upon him was in
direct proportion to his sincerity. His mind was not the
type that shirks conclusions, nor fears to look facts in the
face. For really new knowledge he was ever ready to yield
all previous theories, to scrap all he had held hitherto for
probable. His mind was open, he sought only Truth.
The war, above all the Peace, shook his optimism. If
it did not wholly shatter his belief in human progress, it
proved such progress to be so slow that his Utopia faded
into remotest distance, and his dream of perfectibility be-
came the faintest possible star in his hitherto bright sky
of hope.
He felt shocked and stupefied. The reaction was greater
than at first he realized. He had often pitied the mind
that, aware only of its surface consciousness, uninformed
by thrill or shift of the great powers below and above, lived
unwarned of its own immenser possibilities. To such, the
evidence for extended human faculties must seem explicable
by fraud, illusion, derangement, to be classed as abnormal
rubbish worthy only of the alienist's attention as diseases.
To him such minds, though able, with big intellects among
them, had ever seemed a prejudiced, fossilized, prehistoric
type. Restricted by their very nature, violently resisting
new ideas, they might be intense within their actual scope,
but, with vision denied them, they never could be really
great.
One effect of the shock he had undergone will be evident
by merely stating that he now understood this type of mind
a good deal better than before.
CHAPTER IV
THE war was over, though the benefits of the long
anticipated peace still kept provocatively, exasperat-
ingly, out of reach, when, about the middle of September,
Dr. Fillery received a letter that interested him deeply.
The shattered world was still distraught, uneasy.
Nervously eager to resume its former activities, it was yet
waiting for the word that should give it the necessary con-
fidence to begin. Doubt, insecurity, uncertainty everywhere
dominated human minds. Those who hoped for a renewal
of the easy, careless mood of pre-war days were dismayed
to find this was impossible; others who had allowed an
optimistic idealism to prophesy a New Age, looked about
them bewilderingly and in vain for signs of its fair birth.
The latter, to whom, perhaps, Dr. Fillery belonged, were
more bitterly disappointed, more cruelly shocked, than the
former. The race, it seemed to many unshirking eyes, had
leaped back centuries at a single spring; the gulf of primal
savagery which had gaped wide open for five years, prov-
ing the Stone Age close beneath the surface of so-called
civilization, had not yet fully closed. Its jaws still dripped
blood, hatred, selfishness ; the Race was still dislocated by
the convincing disproof of progress, horrified at the fierce
reality which had displaced the two-pence coloured dream
it had been complacently worshipping hitherto. Men in
the mass undoubtedly were savages still.
To Dr. Fillery, an honest, though not a necessarily funda-
mental pessimism, seemed justified. He believed in progress
still, but as his habit was, he faced the facts. His attitude
lost something of its original enthusiasm. Looking about
him, he saw no big constructive movement ; the figure who
18
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 19
more than any other was altering the face of the world
with his ideas as well as his armies, was avowedly de-
structive only. He found himself a sobered and a saddened
man.
His Private Home, having accomplished splendid work,
had just discharged its last shell-shocked patient; it was
now empty again, the staff, carefully chosen and proved
by long service, dismissed on holidays, the building itself
renovated and repaired against the arrival later of new
patients that were expected.
Devonham, his assistant, away for a period of rest in
Switzerland, would be back in a week or two, and Dr.
Fillery, before resuming his normal work, found himself
with little to do but watch the progress of the cleaners,
painters and carpenters at work.
Into this brief time of leisure dropped the strange, per-
plexing letter with an effect distinctly stimulating. It
promised an unusual case, a patient, if patient the case
referred to could properly be called, a young man "who if
you decide after careful reflection to reject, can be looked
after only by the State, which means, of course, an Asylum
for the Insane. I know you are no longer head of the
Establishment in Liverpool, but that you confine yourself
to private work along similar lines, though upon a smaller
scale, and that you welcome only cases that have been
given up as hopeless. I honour your courage and your
sympathy, I know your skill. So far as a cure is conceiv-
able, this one is hopeless certainly, but its unusual, indeed,
its unique character, entitles it, I believe, to be placed among
your chosen few. Love, sympathy, patience, combined with
the closest observation, it urgently demands, and these
qualities, associated with unrivalled skill, you must allow
me, again, to think you alone possess among healers and
helpers of strange minds.
"For over twenty years, in the solitudes of these Jura
forests and mountains, I have cared for him as best I
could, and with a devotion a child of my own might have
20 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
expected. But now, my end not far away, I cannot leave
him behind me here uncared for, yet the alternative, the
impersonal and formal care of an Institute, must break
my heart and his. I turn to you.
"My advanced age and growing infirmities, in these days
of unkind travel, prohibit my bringing him over. Can your
great heart suggest a means, since I feel sure you will not
refuse the care of this strange being whose nature and
peculiarities indicate your especial care, and yours alone?
Is it too much to wonder if you yourself could come and
see him here in the remote mountain chalet where I have
tended and cared for him ever since his mother died in
bearing him over twenty years ago ?
"I have taught him what seemed wise and best; I have
guarded and observed him; he knows little or nothing of
an outside world of men and women, and is ignorant of
life in the ordinary meaning of the word. What precisely
he may be, to what stratum of consciousness he belongs,
what kind of being he is, I mean. . . ." The last two lines
were then scored through, though left legible. "I feel with
Arago, that he is a rash man who pronounces the word
'impossible' anywhere outside the sphere of pure mathe-
matics." More sentences were here scored through.
"Dare I say to you, as master, teacher, great open-
minded soul that to human life, as we know it, he does
not, perhaps, belong?
"In writing in this letter I find it impossible to give
you full details. I had intended to set them down; my
pen refuses; in the plain English at my disposal well,
simply, it is not credible. But I have kept full notes all
these years, and the notes belong to you. I enclose an
imperfect painting I made of him some four years ago.
I am no artist; for background you must imagine what
lay beyond my little skill the blazing glory of the immense
wood-fires that he loves to make upon the open mountain
side, usually at dawn after a night of prayer and singing,
while waiting for the strange power he derives (as we all
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 21
do, indeed, at second or third hand), from the worship of
what is to him his mighty father, the life-giving sun. Wind,
as the 'messengers' of the sun, he worships too. . . . Both
sun and wind, that is, produce an unusual state approach-
ing ecstasy.
"Counting upon you, I have hypnotized him, suggesting
that he forget all the immediate past (in fact to date), and
telling him he will like you in place of me though with
him it is an uncertain method.
"I am now old in years. I have lived and loved, suffered
and dreamed like most of us ; my hands have been warmed
at the fires of life, of which, let me add, I am not ignorant.
You have known, I believe, my serious, as also my lighter
imaginative books ; my occasional correspondence with your
colleague Paul Devonham has been of help and guidance
to me. We are not, therefore, wholly strangers.
"The twenty years spent in these solitudes among simple
peasant folk, with a single object of devotion to fill my
days, have been, I would tell you, among the best of my
long existence. My renouncement of the world was no
renouncement. I am enriched with wonder and experience
that amaze me, for the world holds possibilities few have
ever dreamed of, and that I myself, filled as I am with the
memory of their contemplation, can hardly credit even now.
Perhaps in an earlier stage of evolution, as Delboeuf be-
lieves, man was fully aware of all that went on within
himself a region since closed to us, owing to attention
being increasingly directed outwards. Into some such
region I have had a glimpse, it seems. I feel sometimes
there was as much fact as fancy, perhaps, in the wise old
Hebrew who stated poetically recently, too, compared with
the stretch of time my science deals with 'The Sons of
God took to themselves daughters of the children of
men. . . ."
The letter here broke off, as though interrupted by some-
thing unexpected and unusual ; it was signed, indeed, "John
Mason," but signed in pencil and at the bottom of an
22 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
unwritten blank sheet. It had not all been written, either,
at one time, or on the same day; there were intervals, evi-
dently, perhaps of hours, perhaps of days, between the
paragraphs. Dr. Fillery read, re-read, then read again the
strange epistle, coming each time to the same conclusion
the writer was dying in the very act of forming the last
sentences. Their incoherence, the alteration in the style,
were thus explained. He had felt the end of life so close
that he had written his signature, probably addressed the
envelope as well, knowing the page might never be filled
up. It had not been filled up.
Something behind the phrases, behind the intensity of
the actual words, beyond the queer touches that revealed
a mind betrayed by solitude, the hints possibly of a deluded
intelligence there was something that rang true and
stimulated him more than ordinarily. The reference to
Devonham, too, was definite enough. Dr. Fillery remem-
bered vaguely a correspondence during recent crowded
years with a man named Mason, living away in Switzer-
land somewhere, and that Devonham had asked him ques-
tions from time to time about what he called, with his
rough-and-ready and half -humorous classification, "pagan
obsession," "worshipper of fire and wind," referring it to
the writer of the letters, named John Mason. "Non-human
delusion," he had also called it sometimes. They had come
to refer to it, he remembered, as "N.H." in fact.
He now looked up those Notes, for the mention of the
books caused him an uncomfortable feeling of neglected
opportunity, and John Mason was an honoured name.
"You know, I believe . . . my books," the writer said.
Could this be, he asked himself anxiously, John Mason, the
eminent geologist? Had Devonham not realized who he
was? Must he blame his assistant, whose jealous care and
judgment saved him so many foolish, futile, un-real cases,
reserving what was significant and important only?
The Notes established his mistakes and his assistant's
perhaps intentional? ignorance. The writer of this
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 23
curious letter was unquestionably the author of those fairy
books for children, old and young, whose daring specula-
tions had suggested that other types and races, ages even
before the Neanderthal man, had dwelt side by side with
what is known as modern man upon this time-worn planet.
Behind the literary form of legend and fairy tale, however,
lay a curious conviction. Atlantis was of yesterday com-
pared with earlier civilizations, now extinct by fire and flood
and general upheaval, which once may have inhabited the
globe. The present evolutionary system, buttressed by
Darwin and the rest, was but a little recent insignificant
series, trivial both in time and space, when set beside the
mightier systems that had come and gone. Their evidence
he found, not in clumsy fossils and footprints on cooled
rocks, but in the minds of those who had followed and
eventually survived them : memories of Titan Wars and
mighty beings, and gods and goddesses of non-human kind,
to whose different existence the physical conditions of an
over-heated planet presented no impossibility. The human
species, this trumpery, limited, self-satisfied super-animal
man, was not the only type of being.
Yet John Mason, in his day, had held the chair at Edin-
burgh University, his lectures embodied common-sense and
knowledge, with acutest imaginative insight. His earliest
writings were the text-books of the time. His name, when
Edward Fillery was medical student there, still hovered
like well-loved incense above the old-town towers.
The Notes now intrigued him. No blame attached to
Devonham for having missed the cue, Devonham could not
know everything; geology was not in his line of work and
knowledge ; and Mason was a common name. Rather he
blamed himself for not having been struck by the oddness
of the case the Mason letters, the pagan obsession,
worshipper of wind and fire, the strange "N.H."
"A competent indexer, at any rate," he said to himself
with a smile, as he turned up the details easily.
These were very scanty. Devonham evidently had
24 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
deemed the case of questionable value, The letters from
Mason, with the answers to them, he could not find.
The slight record was headed "Mason, John," followed
by an address "Chez Henri Petavel, peasant, Jura Moun-
tains, Vaud, French Switzerland," and details how to reach
this apparently remote valley by mule and carriage and
foot-path. Name of Mason's protege not given.
"Sex, male; age born 1895 ; parentage, couple of
mystical temperament, sincere, but suffering from marked
delusions, believers in Magic (various, but chiefly concerned
with Nature and natural forces, once known, forgotten
to-day, of immense potency, accessible to certain practices
of logical but undetailed kind, able apparently to intensify
human consciousness).
"Subject, of extremely quick intelligence, yet betrays
ignorance of human conditions; intelligence superior to
human, though sometimes inferior; long periods of quies-
cence, followed by immense, almost super-human, activity
and energy; worships fire and air, chiefly the former, call-
ing the sun his father and deity.
"Abhors confined space; this shown by intense desire
for heat, which, together with free space (air), seem con-
ditions of well-being.
"Fears (as in claustrophobia) both water and solidity
(anything massive).
"Has great physical power, yet indifferent to its use;
women irresistibly attracted to him, but his attitude towards
other sex seems one of gentleness and pity; love means
nothing. Has, on the other hand, extraordinarily high ideal
of service. Is puzzled by quarrels and differences of
personal kind* Half-memories of vast system of myriad
workers, ruled by this ideal of harmonious service. Faith-
ful, true, honest; falseness or lies impossible . . . lovable,
pathetic, helpless type "
The Notes broke off abruptly.
Dr. Fillery, wondering a little that his subordinate's brief
but suggestive summary had never been brought to his
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 25
notice before, turned a moment to glance at the rough
water-colour drawing he held in his hand. He looked at
it for some moments with absorption. The expression of
his face was enigmatical. He was more than surprised
that Devonham had not drawn his attention to the case in
detail. Placing his hand so as to hide the lower portion
of the facej he examined the eyes, then turned the portrait
upside down, gazing at the eyes afresh. He seemed lost
in thought for a considerable time. A faint flush stole into
his cheek, and a careful observer might have noticed an
increase of light about the skin. He sighed once or twice,
and presently, laying the portrait down again, he turned
back to the dossier upon the table in front of him.
"Very accurate and careful," he said to himself with
satisfaction as he noticed the date Devonham had set against
the entries "J une 2Oth, 1914."
The war, therefore, had interrupted the correspondence.
Devonham had made further notes of his own in the
margin here and there :
"Does this originate primarily from Mason's mind, com-
municated thence to his protege?" He agreed with his
assistant's query.
"If so, was it transferred to Mason's mind before that?
By the father or mother? The mother was, obviously,
his Mason's great love. Yet the father was his life
friend. Mason's great passion was suppressed. He never
told it. It found no outlet."
"Admirable," was the comment spoken below his breath.
"Boy born as result of some 'magical' experiment in-
tensely believed (not stated in detail), during course of
which father died suddenly.
"Mason tended mother, then lived alone in remote place
where all had occurred.
"Did Mason inherit entire content of parents' beliefs,
dramatizing this by force of unexpressed but passionate
love?
"Did not Mason's mind, thus charged, communicate whole
26 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
business to the young mind he has since formed, a plastic
mind uninfluenced by normal human surroundings and con-
ditions of ordinary life?
"Transfer of a sex-inspired mania?"
Then followed another note, summarizing evidently
Devonham's judgment:
"Not worth F/s investigation until examined further.
N.B. Look up Mason first opportunity and judge at first
hand."
Dr. Fillery, glancing from the papers to the portrait,
smiled a little again as he signified approval.
But the last entry interested him still more. It was dated
July 13, 1914.
"Mason reports boy's prophecy of great upheaval com-
ing. Entire race slips back into chaos of primitive life
again. Entire Western Civilization crumbles. Modern in-
ventions and knowledge vanish. Nature spirits reappear.
. . . Desires return of all previous letters. These sent by
registered post."
A few scattered notes on separate sheets of paper lay
at the end of the carefully typed dossier, but these were
very incomplete, and Devonham's handwriting, especially
when in pencil, was not of the clearest.
"Non-human claim, though absurd, not traceable to any
antecedent causes given by letters* What is Mason's past
mental and temperamental history? Is he not, through the
parents, the cause? Mania seems harmless, both to subject
and others. No suffering or unhappiness. Therefore not
a case for F., until further examined by self. Better see
Mason and his subject first. Wrote July 24th proposing
visit."
Dr. Fillery's eyes twinkled. His forehead relaxed. He
looked back. He remembered details. Devonham's holiday
that year, he recalled, was due on August ist; he had in-
tended going out mountain climbing in Switzerland.
The final note of all, also in half-legible writing, seemed
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 27
to refer to the treatment Mason had asked advice about,
and the line Devonham had suggested:
"Natural life close to Nature cannot hurt him. But I
advise watch him with fire and with heights heat, air!
That is, he may decide his physical body is irksome and
seek to escape it. Teach him natural history botany,
geology, insects, animals, even astronomy, but always giv-
ing him reasons and explanations. Above all let him meet
girls of his own age and fall in love. Fullest natural expres-
sion, but guarded without his knowing it. . . ."
For a long time Dr. Fillery sat with the notes and papers
before him, thinking over what he had read. Devonham's
advice was clever enough, but without insight, sound and
astute, yet lacking divination.
The twinkle in his eyes, caused by the final entry, died
away. His face was grave, his manner preoccupied, intense.
He gazed long at the portrait in his hand. ... It was dusk
when he finally rose, replaced the dossier, locked the
cabinet, and went out into another room, and thence into
the hall. Taking his hat and stick, he left the house, already
composing in his mind the telegram instructing Devonham,
while apologizing for the interrupted holiday, to bring the
subject of the Notes to England with him. A telegraph
girl met him on the very steps of the house. He took the
envelope from her, and opened it. He read the message
It was dated Bale, the day before:
"Arriving end week with interesting patient. Details
index under Mason. Prepare private suite.
"DEVONHAM/'
CHAPTER V
IT was, however, some two weeks later before Dr. Fillery
was on his way to the station to meet Devonham and
his companion. A slight delay, caused apparently by the
necessity of buying an outfit, had intervened and given time
for an exchange of letters, but Devonham had contented
himself chiefly with telegrams. He did not wish his chief
to know too much about the case in advance. "Probably
he regrets the Notes already," thought the doctor, as the
car made its way slowly across crowded London. "He
wants my first unbiased judgment; he's right, of course,
but it's too late for that now."
The delay, however, had been of value. The Home was
in working order again, the staff returned, the private suite
all ready for its interesting occupant, whom in thought he
had already named "N.H."; for in the first place he did
not know his name as yet, and in the second he felt towards
him a certain attitude of tolerant, half-humorous scepticism.
Cut off from his own kind for so many years, educated,
perhaps half -educated only, by too speculative and imagina-
tive a mind, equally warped by this long solitude, a mind
unduly stretched by the contemplation of immense geolog-
ical perspectives, filled, too, with heaven knows what strange
stories of pantheistic Nature- feeling "N. H." might be
distinctly interesting, but hardly all that Mason had thought
him. "Unique" was a word rarely justified ; the peculiari-
ties would prove to be mere extravagances that had, of
necessity, remained uncorrected by the friction of inter-
course with his own kind. The rest was inheritance, equally
unpruned; a mind living in a side-eddy, a backwater with
Nature. . , ,
28
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 29
At the same time Dr. Fillery admitted a certain antici-
patory excitement he could not wholly account for, an
undercurrent of wonder he ascribed to his Khaketian blood.
He had written once only to his assistant, sending briefest
instructions to say the rooms would be ready, and that the
young man must believe he was an invited guest coming on
a visit. "Let him expect complete freedom of movement
and occupation without the smallest idea of restraint in
any way. He is merely coming to stay for as long as he
pleases with a friend of Mason. Impress him with a sense
of hearty welcome," And Devonham, replying, had evi-
dently understood the wisdom of this method. "He is also
greatly pleased with your name the sound of it," was
stated in the one letter that he wrote, "and as names mean
a lot to him, so much the better. The sound of it gives
him pleasure ; he keeps repeating it over to himself ; he
already likes you. My name he does not care about, saying
it quickly, sharply. But he trusts me. His trust in any-
one who shows him kindness is instantaneous and complete.
He invariably expects kindness, however, from everyone
gives it himself equally and is baffled and puzzled by any
other treatment."
So Devonham, with "N. H.," who attached importance
to names and expected kindness from people as a natural
thing, would be in London town within the hour. Straight
from his forests and mountains for the first time in his
life, he would find himself in the heart of the greatest
accumulation of human beings on the planet, the first city
of the world, the final expression of civilization as known
to the human race.
" 'N. H.' in London town," thought Dr. Fillery, his mouth
twitching with the smile that began in his quiet eyes.
"Bless the lad ! We must make him feel at home and happy.
He shall indeed have kindness. He'll need a woman's touch
as well." He reflected a moment. "Women are a great
help in doubtful cases the way a man reacts to them," he
mused. "Only they must be distinct in type to be of
80 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
value." And his mind ran quickly, comprehensively over
the women of his acquaintance, pausing, as it did so, upon
two in particular a certain Lady Gleeson, and Iraida
sometimes called Nayan Khilkoff, the daugher o*f his
Russian friend, the sculptor.
His mind pondered for some moments the two he had
selected. It was not the first time he had made use of
them. Their effect respectively upon a man was invariably
instinctive and illuminating.
The two were radically different feminine types, as far
removed from one another as pole from pole, yet each
essentially of her sex. Their effect, respectively, upon such
a youth must be of value, and might be even illuminating
to the point of revelation. Both, he felt sure, would not be
indifferent to the new personality.
It was, however, of Nayan Khilkoff that he thought
chiefly. Of that rare, selfless, maternal type which men
in all ages have called saint or angel, she possessed that
power which evoked in them all they could feel of respect,
of purity, of chivalry, that love, in a word, which holds
as a chief ingredient, worship. Her beauty, beyond their
reach, was of the stars; it was the unattainable in her they
loved; her beauty was of the soul. Nayan was spiritual,
not as a result of painful effort and laborious development,
but born so. Her life, moreover, was one of natural service.
Personal love, exclusive devotion to an individual, concen-
tration of her being upon another single being this seemed
impossible to her. She was at the same time an enigma : there
was an elusive flavour about her that made people a little in
awe of her, a flavour not of this earth, quite. She carried an
impersonal attitude almost to the point of seeming irre-
sponsive to common human things and interests.
The other woman, Lady Gleeson, Angela her Christian
name, was equally a simple type, though her simplicity was
that of the primitive female who is still close to the Stone
Age a savage. She adorned herself to capture men. She
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 31
was the female spider that devours its mates. She wanted
slaves. To describe her as selfish were inadequate, for she
was unaware that any other ideal existed in life but that
of obtaining her own pleasure. There was instinct and
emotion, but, of course, no heart. Without morals, con-
science or consideration, she was the animal of prey that
obeys the call of hunger in the most direct way possible,
regardless of consequences to herself or others. Her brain
was quick, her personality shallow. When talking she
"rattled on." Devonham had well said once: "You can
hear her two thoughts clicking, both of them in trousers!"
Sir George, recently knighted, successful with large con-
cessions in China, was indulgent. The male splendour of
the youth was bound to stimulate her hunger, as his sim-
plicity, his loneliness, and in a sense his pathetic helpless-
ness, would certainly evoke the tenderness in Nayan. "He'll
probably like her dear, ridiculous name, too," Dr. Fillery
felt, "the nickname they gave her because she's the same
to everybody, whichever way you take her Nayan Khil-
koff." Yet her real name was more beautiful Iraida. And,
as he repeated it half aloud, a soft light stole upon his face,
shone in the deep clear eyes, and touched even the corners
of the rather grim mouth with another, a tenderer expres-
sion, before the sternness quickly returned to it.
"N f H." would meet, thus, two main types of female
life. He, apparently an exceedingly male being, would face
the onslaught of passion and heart, of lust and love, respec-
tively; and it was his reactions to these onslaughts that
Fillery wished to observe. They would help his diagnosis,
they might guide his treatment.
It was a warm and muggy afternoon, the twilight pass-
ing rapidly into darkness now; one of those late autumn
days when summer heat flits back, but light is weak. The
covered sky increased the clammy warmth, which was
damp, unhealthy, devitalizing. No wind stirred. The great
city was sticky and depressing. Yet people approved the
32 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
heat, although it tired them. "It shortens the winter, any-
how," was the general verdict, when expressed at all. They
referred unconsciously to the general dread of strikes.
London was hurried and confused. An air of feverish
overcrowding reigned in the great station, when he left the
car and went in on foot. No sign of order, system, direc-
tion, was visible. The scene might have been a first re-
hearsal of some entirely new experiment. Grumbling and
complaint rose from all sides in an exasperated chorus.
He tried to ascertain how late the train was and on which
platform it might be expected, but no one knew for certain,
and the grudging replies to questions seemed to say,
"You've no right to ask anything, and if you keep on ask-
ing there will be a strike. So that's that !"
He listened to the talk and watched the facial expres-
sions and the movements of the half -resigned and half-
excited concourse of London citizens. The clock was
accurate, and everyone was kind to ladies; stewed tea, stale
cake with little stones in it, vile whisky and very weak
beer were obtainable at high prices. There were no matches.
The machine for supplying platform-tickets was broken.
He saw men paying more thought and attention to the
comfort of their dogs than to their own. The great, marvel-
lous, stupid, splendid race was puzzled and exasperated.
Then, suddenly, the train pulled in, full of returned exiles
longing to be back again in "dear old England."
"Thank God, it's come," sighed the crowd. "Good!
We're English. Forgive and forget!" and prepared to tip
the porters handsomely and carry their own baggage.
The confusion that followed was equally characteristic,
and equally remarkable, displaying greatness side by side
with its defects. There was no system; all was muddled,
yet all was safe. Anyone could claim what luggage they
liked, though no one did so, nor dreamed, it seemed, of
doing so. There was an air of decent honesty and trust.
There were ladies who discovered that all men are savages ;
there were men and women who were savages. People
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 33
shook hands warmly, smiled with honest affection, said
light, careless good-byes that hid genuine emotion; helped
one another with parcels, offered one another lifts. There
were few taxicabs, one perhaps to every thirty people.
And in this general scrimmage, Dr. Fillery, at first, could
see no sign of his expected arrivals; he walked from end
to end of the platform littered with luggage and thronged
with bustling people, but nowhere could he discover the
familiar outline of Devonham, nor anyone who answered
to the strange picture that already stood forth sharply in
his mind.
"There's been a mistake somewhere," he said to himself ;
"I shall find a telegram when I get back to the house
explaining it" when, suddenly and without apparent cause,
there stole upon him a curious lift of freedom a sharp
sense of open spaces he was at a loss to understand. It
was accompanied by an increase of light. For a second it
occurred to him that the great enclosing roof had rolled
back and blown away, letting in air and some lost ray of
sunshine. A lovely valley flitted across his thought. Al-
most he was aware of flowers, of music, of rhythmic move-
ment.
"Edward! there you are. I thought you hadn't come,"
he heard close behind him, and, turning, saw the figure of
Devonham, calm and alert as usual. At his side stood a
lean, virile outline of a young man, topping Devonham by
several inches, with broad but thin shoulders, figure erect
yet flexible, whose shining and inquiring eyes of blue were
the most striking feature in a boyish face, where strength,
intensity and radiant health combined in an unusual degree.
"Here is our friend, LeVallon," added Devonham, but
not before the figure had stepped lightly and quickly for-
ward, already staring at him and shaking his outstretched
hand.
So this was "N. H.," and LeVallon was his name. The
calm, searching eyes held a touch of bewilderment in them,
the eyes of an honest, intelligent animal, thought Fillery
34 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
quickly, adding in spite of himself and almost simul-
taneously, "but of a divine animal." It was a look he had
never in his life before encountered in any human eyes.
Mason's water-colour sketch had caught something, at least,
of their innocence and question, of their odd directness
and intensity, something, too, of the golden fire in the hair.
He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat of Swiss pattern, a
Bernese overcoat, a low, soft-collared shirt, with blue tie
to match.
Buffeted and pushed by the frenzied travellers, they stood
and faced each other, shaking hands, eyes looking into
eyes, two strangers, doctor and patient possibly, but friends
most certainly, both felt instantly. They liked one another,
Once again the scent of flowers danced with light above
the piled-up heaps of trunks, rugs, packages. A cool wind
from mountains seemed to blow across the dreadful station.
"You've arrived safely," began Dr. Fillery, a little taken
aback perhaps. "Welcome ! And not too tired, I hope
when the other interrupted him in a man's deep voice, full
of pleasant timbre :
"Fill-er-y," he said, making the "F" sound rather long,
"I need you. To see you makes me happy."
"Tired," put in Devonham breathlessly, "good heavens,
not he ! But I am. Now for a porter and the big luggage.
Have you got a taxi ?"
"The car is here," said Fillery, letting go with a certain
reluctance the hand he held, and paying little attention to
anything but the figure before him who used such unex-
pected language. What was it? What did it mean?
Whence came this sudden sense of intensity, light, of order,
system, intelligence into the racial scene of muddled turmoil
all about him? There seemed an air of speeding up in
thought and action near him, compared to which the slow
stupidity, unco-ordinated and confused on all sides, became
painful, gross, and even ludicrous.
Someone bumped against him with violence, but quite
needlessly, since the simplest judgment of weight and dis-
tance could have avoided the collision. In such ordinary
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 35
small details he was aware of another, a higher, standard
close. A man on his left, trying to manage several bundles,
appeared vividly as of amazing incompetence, with his mis-
calculation, his clumsy movement, his hopeless inability to
judge cause and effect. Yet he had two arms, ten fingers,
two legs, broad shoulders and deep chest. Misdirection of
his great strength made it impossible for him to manage
the assortment of light parcels. Next to him, however, stood
a woman carrying a baby there was no error there. The
panting engine just beyond them, again, set a standard of
contemptuous, impersonal intelligence that, obeying Nature's
laws, dwarfed the humans generally. But it was another,
a quasi-spiritual standard that had flashed to him above all.
In some curious way the competent "dead" machinery that
obeyed the Law with faultless efficiency, and the woman
obeying instinct with equally unconscious skill these two
energies were akin to the new standard he was now
startlingly aware of.
He looked up, as though to trace this sudden new con-
sciousness of bright, quick, rapid competence almost as
of some immense power building with consistent scheme
and system that had occurred to him; and he met again
the direct, yet slightly bewildered eyes that watched him,
watched him with confidence, sweetness, and with a ques-
tioning intensity he found intriguing, captivating, and oddly
stimulating. He felt happiness.
"By yer leave!" roared a porter, as they stepped aside
just in time to save being pushed by the laden truck
just in time to save himself, that is, for the other, Fillery
noticed, moved like a chamois on its native rocks, so surely,
lightly, swiftly was he poised.
"This! Ah, you must excuse it," the doctor exclaimed
with a smile of apology almost, "we've not yet had time
to settle down after the war, you see." He pointed with
a sweep of his hand to the roaring, dim-lit cavern where
confusion reigned supreme, the G.H.Q. of travel in the
biggest city of the Empire.
"I've got a porter,'"' cried Devonham, beckoning vigorously
36 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
a little further down the platform. "You wait there. I'll
be along in a minute with the stuff." He was hot, flustered,
exhausted.
"You struggle. It was like this all the way. Is there
no knowledge?" LeVallon asked in his deep, quiet tones.
"We do," said Fillery. "With us life is always struggle.
But there is more system than appears. The confusion is
chiefly on the surface."
"It is dark and there is so little air," observed the other.
"And they all work against each other."
Fillery laughed into the other's eyes; they laughed to-
gether; and it seemed suddenly to the doctor that their
beings somehow merged, so that, for a second, he knew
the entire content of his companion's mind as if there
was nothing in LeVallon he did not understand.
"You are a builder," LeVallon said abruptly. But as
he said it his companion caught, on the wing as it were,
another meaning. He became curiously aware of the small-
ness, of the remote insignificance of the little planet whereon
this dialogue took place, yet at the same time of its superb
seductive loveliness. In him rose a feeling, as on wings,
that he was not chained in his familiar, daily personality,
but that an immense, delicious freedom lay within reach.
He could be everywhere at once. He could do everything.
"Wait here while I help Devonham. Then we'll get into
the car and be off." He moved away, threading a path
with difficulty.
"I wait in peace. I am happy," was the reply.
And with those few phrases, uttered in the quiet, deep
voice, sounding in his ears and in his very blood, the older
man went towards the spot where Devonham struggled with
a porter, a pile of nondescript luggage and a truck : "I wait
in peace. . . . You struggle, you work against each
other. ... It is dark, there is little air. . . . You are a
builder. . . ."
But not these singular words alone remained alive in
his mind; there remained in his heart the sense of that
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 37
vitality of open spaces, keen air and brighter light he had
experienced and, with it, the security of some higher,
faultless standard. His brain, indeed, had recognized a
consciousness of swifter reactions, of surer movements, of
more intelligent co-ordination, compared to which the people
about him behaved like stupid, almost like half-witted
beings, the one exception being the instinctive action of the
mother in carrying her baby, and the other, the impersonal,
accurate, competence of the dead machinery.
But, more than this reasoned change, there burned sud-
denly in his heart an inexplicable exhilaration and bright-
ness, a wonder that he could attribute only to another mode
of life. His Khaketian blood, he knew, might be responsible
for part of it, but not for all. The invigorating mountain
wind, the sunlight, the rhythmic sound, the scent of wild
flowers, these were his own personal interpretations of a
quickened sense he could not analyse as yet. As he held
the young man's hand, as he gazed into his direct blue
eyes, this sense had increased in intensity. LeVallon had
some marvellous quality or power that was new to him,
while yet not entirely unfamiliar. What was it ? And how
did the youth perceive this sense in him so surely that he
took its presence for granted, accepted, even played upon
it? He experienced, as it were, a brilliant intensification
of spirit. Some portion of him already knew exactly what
LeVallon was.
Across the ugly turmoil and confusion of the huge dingy
railway terminus had moved wondrously some simple power
that brought in Beauty. Some very deep and ancient
conception had touched him and gone its way again. The
stupendous beauty of a simple, common day appeared to
him. His subconscious being, of course, was deeply stirred.
That was the truth, phrase it as he might. His heart was
lifted as by a primal wind at dawn upon some mountain
top. The heaviness of the day was gone. Fatigue, too,
vanished. The "civilized" folk appeared contemptible and
stupid. Something direct from Nature herself poured
38 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
through him., And it was from the atmosphere of LeVallon
this new vitality issued radiating.
He found a moment or two, while alone with Devonham,
to exchange a few hurried sentences. As they bent over
bags and bundles he asked quick questions. These ques-
tions and answers between the two experienced men were
brief but significant:
"Yes, quiet as a lamb. Just be kind and sympathetic.
You looked up the Notes ? Well, that can't be helped now,
though I had rather you knew nothing. My mistake, of
course."
"The content of his mind is accessible to me telepath-
ically in any case."
"But at one remove more distant, because unexpressed."
Fillery laughed. "Quite right. I admit it's a pity. But
tell me more about him anything I ought to know at
once."
"Quiet as a lamb, I told you," repeated the other, "and
most of the way over too. Butt puzzled my God, Edward,
his criticisms would make a book."
"Normal? Intelligent criticisms?"
"Intelligent above ordinary. Normal no."
"Hysteria?"
"Not a sign."
"Health?"
"Perfect, magnificent, as you see. He's less tired now
than when we started three days ago, whereas I'm fagged
out, though in climbing condition."
"Origin of delusions any indication?"
Devonham looked up quickly. His eyes flashed a
peculiarly searching glance something watchful in it per-
haps. "No delusion at all of any sort. As for origin of
his ideas the parents probably, but stimulated and allowed
unchecked growth by Mason. Affected by Nature beyond
anything we know."
"By Nature. Ah!" He checked himself. "And what
peculiarities?" he asked.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 39
"His terror of water, for instance. Crossing the Channel
he was like a frightened child. He hid from it, kept his
hands over his eyes even, so as not to see it."
"Give any reason?"
"All he said was 'It is unknown, an enemy, and can
destroy me, I cannot understand its secret ways. Fire
and wind are not in it. I cannot work with it.' No, it
was not fear of drowning that he meant. He found com-
fort, too, in the repetition of your name."
"Appetite, pulse, temperature?" asked Fillery, after a
brief pause.
"First two very strong ; temperature always slightly above
normal."
"Other peculiarities ?"
"He became rather excited before a lighted match once
tried to kneel, almost, but I stopped it."
"Fire?"
"That's it. Instinct of worship presumably."
The barrow was laden, the porter was asking where
the car was. They prepared to move back to the com-
panion, whom Fillery had never failed to observe care-
fully over his shoulder during this rapid conversation.
"N. H." had not moved the whole time: he stood quietly,
looking about him, a curious figure, aloof somehow from
his surroundings, so tall and straight and unconcerned he
seemed, yet so poised, alert, virile, vigorous. It was not
'his clothes that made him appear unusual, nor was it his
eyes and hair alone, though all three contributed their
share. Yet he seemed dressed up, his clothes irksome to
him. He was uncommon, an attractive figure, and many
a pair of eyes, female eyes especially, Fillery noticed, turned
to examine him with undeniable curiosity.
"And women?" the doctor asked quickly in a lowered
voice, as they followed the porter's barrow towards Le-
Vallon, who already smiled at their approach the most
engaging, trustful, welcoming smile that Fillery Bad ever
seen upon a human countenance.
40 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
He lowered his head to catch the reply. But Devonham
only laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "All attracted,"
he mumbled in a half whisper, "and eager to help him."
"And he ?"
"Gentle, astonished, but indifferent, oh, supremely in-
different."
LeVallon came forward to meet them, and Fillery took
his hand and led him to the car. The luggage was bundled
in, some behind and some on the roof. Fillery and Le-
Vallon sat side by side. The car started.
"We shall get home in half an hour," the doctor men-
tioned, turning to his companion. "We'll have a good
dinner and then get to bed. You are hungry, I know."
"Thank you," was the reply, "thank you, dear Fillery.
I want sleep most. Will there be trees and air near me?
And stars to see?"
"Your windows open on to a garden with big trees, there
will be plenty of fresh air, and you will hear the sparrows
chattering at dawn. But London, of course, is not the
country. Oh, we'll make you comfortable, never fear."
"Dear Fillery, I thank you," said LeVallon quietly, and
without more ado lay back among the soft cushions and
closed his eyes. Hardly a word was said the whole way
out to the north-west suburb, and when they arrived the
"patient" was too overcome with sleep to wish to eat. He
went straight to his room, found a hot bath into which he
tumbled first, and then leaped into his bed and was sound
asleep almost before the door was closed. Upon a table
beside the bed Dr. Fillery, with his own hands, arranged
bread, butter, eggs and a jug of milk in case of need.
Nurse Robbins, an experienced, tactful young woman, he
put in special charge. He thought of everything, divining
his friend's possible needs instinctively, noticing with his
keen practised eye several details for himself at the same
time. The splendid physical condition, frame-work,
muscular development he noted no freakish bulky masses
produced by gymnastic exercises, but the muscles laid on
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 41
flowingly, smooth and firm and ample, without a trace of
fat, and the whole in the most admirable proportion pos-
sible. The leanness was deceptive ; the body was of immense
power. The quick, certain, unerring movements he noticed
too; perfect, swift co-ordination between brain and phys-
ical response, no misdirection, no miscalculation, the reac-
tions extremely rapid. He thought with a smile of some-
thing between deer and tiger. The poise and balance and
accuracy conveyed intense joy of living. Yet above and
beyond these was something else he could not name, some-
thing that stirred in him wonder, love, a touch of awe, and
a haunting suggestion of familiarity.
He saw him into bed, he saw him actually asleep* The
strong blue eyes looked up into his own with their intense
and innocent gaze for a moment; he held the firm, dry
muscular hand; ten seconds later the eyes were closed in
sleep, the grip of the powerful but slender fingers relaxed.
"Good night, my friend, and sleep deeply. To-morrow
we'll see to everything you need. Be happy here and com-
fortable with us, for you are welcome and we love you."
His voice trembled slightly.
"Good night, dear Fill-er-y," the musical tones replied,
and he was off.
The windows were wide open. "N. H." had thrown
aside the pyjamas and blankets. On this cool, damp night
of late autumn he covered his big, warm, lithe body with a
single sheet only.
Fillery went out quietly, an expression of keen approval
and enjoyment on his face not a smile exactly, but that
look of deep content, betraying a fine inner excitement of
happiness, which is the mother of all smiles. As he softly
opened the door the draught blew through from the open
windows, stirring the white curtains by the bed. It came
from the big damp garden where the trees stood, already
nearly leafless, and where no flowers were. And yet a
scent of flowers came faintly with it. He caught an echo
of faint sound like music. There was the invigorating
42 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
hint of forests too. It seemed a living wind that blew into
the house.
Dr. Fillery paused a moment, sniffed with surprise and
sharp enjoyment, listened intently, then switched the light
off and went out, closing the door behind him. There was
a flash of wonder in his eyes, and a thrill of some remote
inexplicable happiness ran through his nerves. An instant
of complete comprehension had been his, as if another con-
sciousness had, for that swift instant, identified itself with
his own.
CHAPTER VI
EDWARD FILLERY was glad that Paul Devonham,
good friend and skillful colleague, was his assistant;
for Devonham, competent as himself in knowledge and
experience, found explanations for all things, and had in
his natural temperament a quality of sane judgment which
corrected extravagances.
Devonham was agnostic, because reason ruled his life.
Devoid of imagination, he had no temptations. Speculative,
within limits, he might be, but he belonged not to the
unstable. Not that he thought he knew everything, but
that he refused to base action on what he regarded as
unknown. A clue into the unknown he would follow up
as keenly, carefully, as Fillery himself, but he went step
by step, with caution, declining to move further until the
last step was of hardened concrete. To the powers of the
subconscious self he set drastic limits, admitting their
existence of course, but attaching small value to their use
or development. His own deeper being had never stirred
or wakened. Of this under-sea, this vast background in
himself, he remained placidly uninformed. A comprehensive
view of a problem the flash of vision he never knew
thus was perhaps denied him, but so far as he went he was
very safe and sure. And his chief was the first to appreciate
his value. He appreciated it particularly now, as the two
men sat smoking after their late dinner, discussing details
of the new inmate of the Home.
Fillery, aware of the strong pull upon his own mixed
blood, aware of a half-wild instinctive sympathy towards
"N. H.," almost of a natural desire now, having seen him,
to believe him "unique" in several ways, and, therefore,
43
44 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
conscious of a readiness to accept more than any evidence
yet justified feeling these symptoms clearly, and remem-
bering vividly his experiences in the railway station, he
was glad, for truth's sake, that Devonham was there to
clip extravagance before it injured judgment. A weak
man, aware of his own frailties, excels a stronger one who
thinks he has none at all. The two colleagues were a power-
ful combination.
"In your view, it's merely a case of a secondary any-
how of a divided personality?" he asked, as soon as the
other had recovered a little from his journey, and was
digesting his meal comfortably over a pipe. "You have
seen more of him than I have. Of insanity, at any rate,
there is no sign at all, I take it? His relations with his
environment are sound?"
"None whatever." Devonham answered both questions
at once. "Exactly."
He took off his pince-nez, cleaned them with his hand-
kerchief, and then replaced them carefully. This gave him
time to reflect, as though he was not quite sure where to
begin his story.
"There are certainly indications," he went on slowly,
"of a divided personality, though of an unusual kind. The
margin between the two between the normal and the
secondary self is so very slight. It is not clearly defined,
I mean. They sometimes merge and interpenetrate. The
frontier is almost indistinguishable."
Fillery raised his eyebrows.
"You feel uncertain which is the main self, and which
the split-off secondary personality?" he inquired, with sur-
prise.
Devonham nodded. "I'm extremely puzzled," he ad-
mitted. "LeVallon's most marked self, the best defined,
the richest, the most fully developed, seems to me what we
should call his Secondary Self this 'Nature-being' that
worships wind and fire, is terrified by a large body of water,
is ignorant of human ways, probably also quite ww-moral,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 45
yet alive with a kind of instinctive wisdom we credit
usually to the animal kingdom though far beyond any-
thing animals can claim "
"Briefly, what we mean by the term 'N. H.,' " suggested
Fillery, not anxious for too many details at the moment.
"Exactly. And I propose we always refer to that aspect
of him as 'N. H./ the other, the normal ordinary man,
being LeVallon, his right name." He smiled faintly.
"Agreed," replied his chief. "We shall always know
then exactly which one we're talking of at a given moment.
Now," he went on, "to come to the chief point, and before
you give me details of what happened abroad, let me hear
your own main conclusion. What is LeVallon? What is
'N. H.' ?"
Devonham hesitated for some time. It was evident his
respect for his chief made him cautious. There was an
eternal battle between these two, keen though always good-
natured, even humorous, the victory not invariably per-
haps with the assistant. Later evidence had often proved
Fillery's swifter imagination correct after all, or, alter-
nately, shown him to be wrong. They kept an accurate
score of the points won and lost by either.
"You can always revise your conclusions later," Fillery
reminded him slyly. "Call it a preliminary conclusion for
the moment. You've not had time yet for a careful study,
I know."
But Devonham this time did not smile at the rally, and
his chief noticed it with secret approval. Here was some-
thing new, big, serious, it seemed. Devonham, apparently,
was already too interested to care who scored or did not
score. His Notes of 1914 indeed betrayed his genuine
zeal sufficiently.
"LeVallon," he said at length "to begin with him! I
think LeVallon without any flavour of 'N. H/ is a fine
specimen of a normal human being. His physique is
magnificent, as you have seen, his health and strength
exceptional. The brain, so far as I have been able to judge,
46 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
functions quite normally. The intelligence, also normal, is
much above the average in quickness, receptivity of ideas,
and judgment based on these. The emotional development,
however, puzzles me; the emotions are not entirely normal.
But" he paused again, a grave expression on his face
"to answer your question as well as my limited observation
of him, of LeVallon, allows I repeat that I consider him
a normal young man, though with peculiarities and idiosyn-
crasies of his own, as with most other normal young fellows
who are individuals, that is," he added quickly, "and not
turned out in bundles cut to measure."
"So much for LeVallon. Now what about 'N. H.' ?"
He repeated the question, fixing the assistant with his
steady gaze. He had noticed the confusion in the reply.
"My dear Edward " began Devonham, after a con-
siderable pause. Then he stuck fast, sighed, settled his
glasses carefully upon his aquiline, sharp nose, and relapsed
into silence. His forehead became wrinkled, his mouth
much pursed.
"Out with it, Paul ! This isn't a Court of Law. I shan't
behead you if you're wrong." Yet Fillery, too, spoke
gravely.
The other kept his eyes down; his face still wore a
puzzled look. Fillery detected a new expression on the
keen, thoughtful features, and he was pleased to see it.
"To give you the truth," resumed his assistant, "and all
question of who is right or who is wrong aside, I tell you
frankly I am not sure. I confess myself up against it.
It er gives me the creeps a little " He laughed
awkwardly. That swift watchful look, as of a man who
plays a part, flashed and vanished.
"Your feeling, anyhow?" insisted his friend. "Your
general feeling?"
"A general judgment based on general feeling," said the
other in a quiet tone, "has little value. It is based, neces-
sarily, as you know, upon intuition, which I temperamentally
dislike. It has no facts to go upon. I distrust generaliza-
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 47
tions." He took a deep breath, inhaled a lot of smoke,
exhaled it with relief, and made an effort. It went against
the grain in him to be caught without an explanation.
" 'N. H.' in my opinion, and so far as my limited obser-
vation of him "
Fillery allowed himself a laugh of amused impatience.
"Leave out the personal extras for once, and burn your
bridges. Tell me finally what you think about 'N. H.'
We're not scoring points now."
Thus faced with an alternative, Devonham found his
sense of humour again and forgot himself. It cost him
an effort, but he obeyed the bigger and less personal mind.
"I really don't know exactly what he is," he confessed
again. "He puzzles me completely. It may be" he
shrugged his shoulders, compelled by his temperament to
hedge "that he represents, as I first thought, the content
of his parents' minds, the subsequent addition of Mason's
mind included."
"That's possible, usual and comprehensible enough," put
in the doctor, watching him with amused concentration,
but with an inner excitement scarcely concealed.
"Or" resumed Devonham, "it may be that through
these "
"Through his mental inheritance from his parents and
from Mason, yes "
" he taps the most primitive stores and layers of
racial memory we know. The world-memory, if I dare
put it so, full proof being lacking, is open to him "
"Through his subconscious powers, of course?"
"That is your usual theory, isn't it? We have there, at
any rate, a working hypothesis, with a great mass of evi-
dence generally speaking behind it."
"Don't be cynical, Paul. Is this 'N. H.' merely a
Secondary Personality, or is it the real central self? That's
the whole point."
"You jump ahead, as usual," replied Devonham, really
smiling for the first lime, though his face instantly grew
48 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
serious again. "Edward," he went on, "I do not know, I
cannot say, I dare not <lare not guess. 'N. H.' is some-
thing entirely new to me, and I admit it" He seemed to
find his stride, to forget himself. "I feel far from cynical.
'N. H./ in my opinion, is exceptional. My notes suggested
it long ago. He has, for instance at least, so it seems to
me peculiar powers."
"Ah!"
"Of suggestion, let us put it."
"Of suggestion, yes. Get on with it, there's a good fellow.
I felt myself an extraordinary vitality about him. I noticed
it at once at Charing Cross."
"I saw you did" Devonham looked hard at him. "You
were humming to yourself, you know."
"I didn't know," was the surprised reply, "but I can
well believe it. I felt a curious pleasure and exhilaration."
Devonham, shrugging his shoulders slightly, resumed :
"During the 'LeVallon' periods he is ordinary, though
unusually observant, critical and intelligent; during the
'X. H.' periods he becomes er super-normal. If you felt
this felt anything in the station, it was because something
in you called up the 'N. H.' aspect"
"It's quick of you to guess that," said Fillery, with quick
appreciation. "You noticed a change in me, well but the
other ? He divined my 'foreign' blood, you think?"
"It is enough that you responded and felt kinship. Put
it that way. 'N. H.' seems to me" he took a deeper breath
and gave a sort of gasp "in some ways a unique being
as I said before."
"Tell me, if you can," said Fillery, lighting his own pipe
and settling back into his chair, "tell me a little about your
first meeting with him in the Jura Mountains, what hap-
pened and so forth. I remember, of course, your Notes.
After your telegram, I read 'em carefully." He glanced
round at his companion. "They were very honest, Paul,
I thought. Eh?" He was unable to refuse himself the
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 49
pleasure of the little dig. "Honest you always are," he
added. "We couldn't work together otherwise, could we?"
Devonham, deep in his own thoughts, did not accept the
challenge. He turned in his chair, puffing at his pipe,
"I can give you briefly what happened and how things
went," he said. "The place, then, first : an ordinary peasant
chalet in a remote Jura valley, difficult of access, situated
among what they call the upper pastures. I reached it by
diligence and mule late in the afternoon. A peasant in a
lower valley directed me, adding that 'le monsieur anglais*
was dead and buried two days before "
"Mason, that is?"
The other nodded. "And adding that 'le fou' "
"LeVallon, of course?"
" would eat me alive at sight. He spoke with respect,
however, even awe. He hoped I had come to take him
away. The countryside was afraid of him.
"The valley struck me as intolerably lonely, but of
unusual beauty. Big forests, great rocks, and tumbling
streams among cliffs and pastures made it exceptional. The
chalet was simple, clean and comfortable. It was really
an ideal spot for a thinker or a student. The first thing
I noticed was a fire burning on a pile of rock in front of
the building. The sun was setting, and its last rays lit the
entire little glen a mere gully between precipices and
forest slopes but especially lit up the pile of rocks where
the fire burned, so that I saw the smoke, blue, red and
yellow, and the figure kneeling before it. This figure was
a man, half naked, and of magnificent proportions. When
I shouted "
"You would shout, of course," Yet he did not say it
critically.
" the figure rose and turned and came to meet me.
It was LeVallon."
Devonham paused a moment. Fillery's eyes were fixed
upon him.
50 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"I admit," Devonham went on, conscious of the other's
inquiring and intent expression, "I was surprised a bit."
He smiled his faint, unwilling smile. "The figure made
me start. I was aware of an emotion I am not subject to
what I called just now the creeps. I thought, at last,
I had really seen a a vision. He looked so huge, so won-
derful, so radiant. It was, of course, the effect of coloured
smoke and magnifying sunset, added to his semi-nakedness.
To the waist he was stripped. But, at first, his size, his
splendour, a kind of radiance borrowed from the sunlight
and the fire, seemed to enlarge him beyond human. He
seemed to dominate, even to fill the little valley.
"I stood still, uncertain of my feelings. There was, I
think, a trace of fear in me. I waited for him to come up
to me. He did so. He stretched out a hand. I took it.
And what do you think he said ?"
Fillery, the inner excitement and delight increasing in
him as he listened, stared in silence. There was no light-
ness in him now.
" 'Are you Fillery ?' That's what he said, and the first
words he uttered. 'Are you Fillery?' But spoken in a
way I find difficult to reproduce. He made the name sound
like a rush of wind. 'F,' of course, involves a draught of
breath between the teeth, I know. But he made the name
sound exactly like a gush of wind through branches that's
the nearest I can get to it,"
"Well and then?"
"Don't be impatient, Edward. I try to be accurate. But
really what happened next is a bit beyond any experience
that we I have yet come across. And, as to what I felt
well, I was tired, hungry, thirsty. I wanted, normally,
rest and food and drink. Yet all these were utterly for-
gotten. For a moment or two I admit it I felt as if I
had come face to face with something not of this earth
quite." He grinned. "A touch of gooseflesh came to me
for the first time in my life. The fellow's size and radiance
in the sunlight, the fact that he stood there worshipping
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 51
fire always, to me, the most wonderful of natural phe-
nomena his grandeur and nakedness the way he pro-
nounced your name even all this er upset my judgment
for the moment." He paused again. He hesitated. "A
visual hallucination, due to fatigue, can be, of course, very
detailed sometimes," he added, a note of challenge in his
tone.
Fillery watched his friend narrowly, as he stumbled
among the details of what he evidently found a difficult,
almost an impossible description.
"Natural enough," he put in. "You'd hardly be human
yourself if you felt nothing at such a sight."
"The loneliness, too, increased the effect," went on the
other, "for there was no one nearer than the peasants who
had directed me a thousand feet below, nor was there
another building of any sort in sight. Anyhow, it seemed,
I managed my strange emotions all right, for the young
man took to me at once. He left the fire, if reluctantly,
singing to himself a sort of low chanting melody, with
perhaps five or six notes at most in it, and far from
unmusical "
"He explained the fire? Was he actually worshipping,
I mean?"
"It was certainly worship, judging by the expression of
his face and his gestures of reverence and happiness. But
I asked no questions. I thought it best just to accept, or
appear to accept, the whole thing as natural. He said some-
thing about the Equinox, but I did not catch it properly
and did not ask. This had evidently been taught him. It
was, however, the 22nd of September, oddly enough, though
the gales had not yet come."
"So you got into the chalet next?" asked the other,
noticing the gaps, the incoherence.
"He put his coat on, sat down with me to a meal of
bread and milk and cheese meat there seemed none in
the building anywhere. This meal was, if you understand
me, obeying a mere habit automatically. He did just what
52 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
it had been his habit to do with Mason all these years.
He got the stuff himself quickly, effectively, no fumbling
anywhere and, from that moment, hardly spoke again until
we left two days later. I mean that literally. All he said,
when I tried to make him talk, was, 'You are not Fillery,'
or 'Take me to Fillery. I need him/
"I almost felt that I was living with some marvellously
trained animal, of extraordinary intelligence, gentle, docile,
friendly, but unhappy because it had lost its accustomed
master. But on the other hand I admit it I was con-
scious of a certain power in his personality beyond me to
explain. That, really, is the best description I can give
you."
"You mentioned the name of Mason?" asked Fillery,
avoiding a dozen more obvious and natural questions.
"Several times. But his only reply was a smile, while
he repeated the name himself, adding your own after it:
'Mason Fillery, Mason Fillery,' he would say, smiling with
quiet happiness. 'I like Fillery !' "
"The nights?"
"Briefly I was glad to see the dawn. We had separate
rooms, my own being the one probably where Mason had
died a few days before. But it was not that I minded in
the least. It was the feeling the knowledge in fact that
my companion was up and about all night in the building
or out of doors. I heard him moving, singing quietly to
himself, the wooden veranda creaked beneath his tread.
He was active all through the darkness and cannot have
slept at all. When I came down soon after dawn he was
running over the slopes a mile away, running towards the
chalet, too, with the speed and lightness of a deer. He had
been to some height, I think, to see the sun rise and probably
to worship it "
"And your journey? You got him away easily?"
"He was only too ready to leave, for it meant coming
to you. I arranged with the peasants below to have the
chalet closed up, took my charge to Neuchatel, and thence
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 53
to Berne, where I bought him an outfit, and arrived in due
course, as you know, at Charing Cross."
"His first sight of cities, people, trains, steamers and the
rest, I take it. Any reactions?"
"The troubles I anticipated did not materialize. He
came like a lamb, the most helpless and pathetic lamb I
ever saw. He stared but asked no questions. I think he
was half dazed, even stupefied with it all."
"Stupefied?"
"An odd word to use, I know. I should have said per-
haps 'automatic' rather. He was so open to my suggestions,
doing what my mind expected him to do, but nothing more
ah! with one exception."
Fillery meant to hear an account of that exception, though
the other would willingly have foregone its telling evi-
dently. It was related, Fillery felt sure, to the unusual
powers Devonham had mentioned.
"Oh, you shall hear it," said the latter quickly, "for
what it's worth. There's no need to exaggerate, of course."
He told it rapidly, accurately, no doubt, because his mind
was honest, yet without comment or expression in his voice
and face. He supplied no atmosphere.
"I had got him like a lamb, as I told you, to Paris, and
it was during the Customs examination the er little thing
occurred. The man, searching through his trunk, pulled
out a packet of flat papers and opened it. He looked them
over with puzzled interest, turning them upside down to
examine them from every possible angle. Then he asked
a trifle unpleasantly what they were. I hadn't the smallest
idea myself, I had never seen them before; they were very
carefully wrapped up. LeVallon, whose sudden excitement
increased the official's interest, told him that they were
star-and-weather maps. It doubtless was the truth ; he had
made them with Mason ; but they were queer-looking papers
to have at such a time, hidden away, too, at the bottom of
the trunk; and LeVallon's manner and expression did not
help to disarm the man's evident suspicion. He asked a
54 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
number of pointed questions in a very disagreeable way
who made them, for what purpose, how they were used,
and whether they were connected with aviation. I trans-
lated, of course. I explained their innocence "
"LeVallon's excitement?" asked Fillery. "What form
did it take? Rudeness, anger, violence of any sort?" He
was aware his friend would have liked to shirk these
details.
"Nothing of the kind." He hesitated briefly, then went
on. "He behaved, rather, as though well, as a devout
Catholic might have behaved if his crucifix or some holy
relic were being mauled. The maps were sacred. Symbols
possibly. Heaven knows what! He tried to take them
back. The official, as a natural result, became still more
suspicious and, of course, offensive too. My explanations
and expostulations were quite useless, for he didn't even
listen to them."
Devonham was now approaching the part of the story
he least wished to describe. He played for time. He gave
details of the ensuing altercation.
"What happened in the end?" Fillery at length inter-
rupted. "What did LeVallon do? There were no arrests,
I take it?" he added with a smile.
Paul coughed and fidgeted. He told the literal truth,
however.
"LeVallon, after listening for a long time to the con-
versation he could not understand, suddenly took his fingers
off the papers. The man's dirty hand still held them tightly
on the grimy counter. LeVallon began or he suddenly
began to breathe well heavily rather."
"Rhythmically?"
"Heavily," insisted the other. "In a curious way, any-
how," he added, determined to keep strictly to the truth,
"not unlike Heathcote when he put himself automatically
into trance and then told us what was going on at the
other end of England. You remember the case." He
paused a moment again, as if to recall exactly what had
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 55
occurred. "It's not easy to describe, Edward," he con-
tinued, looking up. "You remember that huge draughty
hall where they examine luggage at the Lyons Station. I
can't explain it. But that breathing somehow caught the
draughts, used them possibly, in any case increased them.
A wind came through the great hall. I can't explain it,"
he repeated, "I can only tell you what happened. That wind
most certainly came pouring steadily through, for I felt it
myself, and saw it blow upon the fluttering papers. The
heat in the salle at the same moment seemed to grow intense.
Not an oppressive heat, though. Radiant heat, rather. It
felt, I mean, like a fierce sunlight. I looked up, almost
expecting to see a great light from which it came. It was
then at this very moment the Frenchman turned as if
someone touched him."
"You felt anything, Paul?"
"Yes," admitted the other slowly.
Fillery waited.
"A what I must call a thrill." His voice was lower
now.
"Of ?" his Chief persisted.
Devonham waited a full ten seconds before reply. He
again shrugged his shoulders a little. Apparently he sought
his words with honest care that included also intense reluc-
tance and disapproval:
"Loveliness, romance, enchantment; but, above all, I
think power." He ground out the confession slowly. "By
power I mean a sort of confidence and happiness."
"Increase of vitality, call it. Intensification of your con-
sciousness."
"Possibly. A bigger perspective suddenly, a bigger scale
of life; something er a bit wild, but certainly er
uncommonly stimulating. The best word, I think, is liberty,
perhaps. An immense and careless sense of liberty." And
Fillery, knowing the value of superlatives in Devonham's
cautious mind, felt satisfied. He asked quietly what the
official did next.
56 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"Stood stock still at first. Then his face changed; he
smiled; he looked up understandingly, sympathetically, at
LeVallon. He spoke : 'My father, too,' he said with admira-
tion, 'had a big telescope. Monsieur is an astronomer.'
"'One of the greatest/ I added quickly; 'these charts
are of infinite value to France.' No sense of comedy
touched me anywhere, the ludicrous was absent. The man
bowed, as carefully, respect in every gesture, he replaced
the maps, marked the trunk with his piece of chalk, and
let us go, helping in every way he could."
Devonham drew a long breath, glad that he had relieved
himself of his unwelcome duty. He had told the literal
truth.
"Of course, of course," Fillery said, half to himself per-
haps, "A breath of bigger consciousness, his imagination
touched, the subconscious wakened, and intelligence the
natural result." He turned to his colleague. "Interesting,
Paul, very," he added in a louder tone, "and not easy to
explain, I grant. The official we do not know, but you,
at any rate, are not a good subject for hypnotic suggestion !"
For some time Devonham said nothing. Presently he
spoke :
"Fillery, I tell you really I love the fellow. He's the
most lovable thing in human shape I ever saw. He gets
into your heart so strangely. We must heal him."
The other sighed, quickly smothering it, yet not before
Devonham had noticed it. They did not look at one an-
other for some seconds, and there was a certain tenseness,
a sense of deep emotion in the air that each, possibly,
sought to hide from the other.
Devonham was the first to break the silence that had
fallen between them.
"To be quite frank it's LeVallon that appeals most to
me," he said, as if to himself, "whereas you, Edward, I
believe, are more more interested in the other aspect of
him. It's 'N. H.' that interests you."
No challenge was intended, yet the glove was flung.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 57
Fillery said nothing for a minute or two. Then he looked
up, and their eyes met across the smoke-laden atmosphere.
It was close on midnight. The world lay very still and
hushed about the house.
"It is," he said quietly, "a pathetic and inspiring case.
He is deserving of" he chose his words slowly and with
care "our very best," he concluded shortly.
"And now," he added quickly, "you're tired out, and I
ought to have let you have a night's sleep before taxing you
like this." He poured out two glasses of whisky. "Let us
drink anyhow to success and healing of body, mind and
soul."
"Body, mind and nerves," said Devonham slowly, as
he drank the toast.
"The reason I had none of the trouble I anticipated,"
remarked Devonham, as he sipped the reviving liquor, "is
simple enough."
"There are two periods, of course, I guessed that."
"Exactly. There is the LeVallon period, when he is
quiescent, normal, very charming into the bargain, more
like a good child or trained animal or happy peasant, if
you like it better, than a grown man. And there is the
*N. H.' period, when he is otherwise."
"Ah!"
"I arrived just at the transition moment, so to speak. It
was during the change I reached the chalet."
"Precisely." Fillery looked up, smiled and nodded.
"That's about the truth," repeated Devonham, putting his
glass down. He thought for a moment, then added slowly,
"I think that fire of his, the worship, singing at the
autumnal equinox marked the change. 'N. H,' at once
after that, slipped back into the unconscious state. Le-
Vallon emerged. It was with LeVallon only or chiefly, /
had to deal., He became so very quiet, dazed a little, half
there, as we call it, and almost entirely silent. He retained
little, if any, memory of the *N. H.' period, although it
lies, I think, just beneath the surface only. The LeVallon
58 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
personality, you see, is not very positive, is it? It seems a
quiet, negative state, a condition almost of rest, in fact."
Fillery listening attentively, made no rejoinder.
"We may expect," continued Devonham, "these alternat-
ing states, I think. The frontier between them is, as I said,
a narrow one. Indeed, often they merge or interpenetrate
In my judgment, the main, important part of his conscious-
ness, that parent Self, is LeVallon not 'N. H.'" The
voice was slightly strident.
"Ah!"
It so happened that, in the act of exchanging these last
words, they both looked up toward the ceiling, where a
moth buzzed round and round, banging itself occasionally
against the electric light. Whether it was this that drew
their sight upwards simultaneously, or whether it was that
some other sound in the stillness of the night had caught
their strained attention, is uncertain. The same thought,
at any rate, was in both minds at that instant, the same
freight of meaning trailing behind it invisibly across the
air. Their hearts burned within them; the two faces up-
ward turned, the lips a little parted as when listening is
intense, the heads thrown back. For in the room above that
ceiling, asleep at this moment, lay the subject of their
long discussion; only a few inches of lath and plaster
separated them from the strange being who, dropping out
of space, as it were, had come to make his home with them.
A being, lonely utterly in the world, unique in kind perhaps,
his nature as yet undecipherable, lay trustingly unconscious
in that upper chamber. The two men felt the gravity, the
responsibility of their charge. The same thought had vividly
touched them both at the same instant.
A few minutes later they were still standing, facing one
another. They were of a height, but compared to Fillery 's
big frame and rugged head, his friend's appearance was
almost slight. Devonham, for all his qualifications, looked
painfully like a shopwalker. They exchanged this steady
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 59
gaze for a few seconds without speaking. Then the older
man said quietly:
"Paul, I understandj and I respect your reticence. I think
I can agree with it."
He placed a hand upon the other's shoulder, smiling
gently, even tenderly.
"You have told me much, but you have not told me all!
The chief part you have intentionally omitted."
"For the present, at any rate," was the reply, given with-
out flinching.
"Your reasons are sound, your judgment perhaps right.
I ask no questions. What happened, what you saw, at the
chalet ; the 'peculiar powers' you mentioned ; all, in fact,
that you think it wise to keep to yourself for the moment,
I leave there willingly."
He spoke gravely, sincere emotion in the eyes and tone.
It was in a lower voice he added :
"The responsibility, of course, is yours."
Devonham returned the steady gaze, pondering his reply
a moment.
"I can and do accept it," he answered. "You have read
my thoughts correctly as usual, Edward. I think you know
quite enough already what with my Notes and Mason's
letter even too much. Besides, why complicate it with an
account of what were doubtless mere mental pictures
hallucinations on my part? This is a matter," he went
on slowly, "a case, we dare not trifle with; there may be
strange and terrible afflictions in it later; we must remain
unbiased." The anxiety deepened on his face.
"True, true," murmured the other. "God bless the boy!
May his own gods bless him!"
"In other words, it will need your clearest, soundest
judgment, your finest skill, your very best, as you said
yourself just now." He used a firmer, yet also a softer
tone suddenly: "Edward, you know your own mind, its
contents, its suppressions, its origin; your refusal of the
60 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
love of women, your deep powerful dreams that you have
suppressed and put away. Promise me" the voice and
manner were very earnest "that you will not communicate
these to him in any way, and that you will keep your judg-
ment absolutely unbiased and untainted." He looked at his
old friend and paused. "Only your purest judgment of
what is to come can help. You promise."
Fillery sighed a scarcely noticeable sigh. "I promise you,
Paul. You are wise and you are right," he said. "On
the other hand, let me say one thing to you in my turn.
This theory of heredity and of mental telepathic trans-
ference the idea that all his mind's content is derived
from his parents and from Mason we cannot, remember,
force this transference and interchange too far. I ask
only this: be fair and open yourself with all that follows."
Devonham raised his voice: "Nor can we, apparently,
sets limits to it, Edward. But to be fair and open-minded
I give my promise too."
Thus, in the little downstairs room of a Private Home
for Incurable Mental Cases, not a Lunatic Asylum, though
sometimes perhaps next door to it, these two men, deeply
intrigued by a new "Case" that passed their understanding,
as it exceeded their knowledge, practice and experience,
swore to each other to observe carefully, to report faith-
fully, and to experiment, if experiment proved necessary,
with honest and affectionate uprightness.
Their views were, obviously, not the same. Devonham,
temperamentally opposed to radical innovations, believed
it was a case of divided personality hundreds of such cases
had passed through their hands. Forced to accept extended
telepathy that all minds can on occasion share one an-
other's content, and that even a racial and a world-memory
can be tapped he feared that his Chief might influence
LeVallon, and twist, thus, the phenomena to a special end.
He knew Edward Fillery's story. He feared, for the sake
of truth, the mental transference. He had, perhaps, other
fears as well.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 61
Fillery, on the other hand, believing as much, and know-
ing more than his colleague, saw in "N. H." a unique pos-
sibility. He was thrilled and startled with a half-impossible
hope. He felt as if someone ran beside his life, bearing
impossible glad tidings, an unexpected, half-incredible figure,
the tidings marvellously bright. He hoped, he already
wished to think, that "N. H." might shadow forth a promise
of some magical advance for the ultimate benefit of the
Race. . . .
The thinkers were crying on the housetops that progress
was a myth, that each wave of civilization at its height
reached the same average level without ever passing further.
The menace to the present civilization, already crumbling,
was in full swing everywhere ; knowledge, culture, learning
threatened in due course with the chaos of destruction that
has so far been the invariable rule. The one hope of saving
the world, cried religion, lay in substituting spiritual for
material values a Utopian dream at best. The one chance,
said science, on the other hand, was that civilization to-day
is continuous and not isolated.
The best hope, believed Fillery, the only hope, lay in
raising the individual by the drawing up into full conscious-
ness of the limitless powers now hidden and inactive in his
deeper self the so-called subliminal faculties. With these
greater powers must come also greater moral development.
Already, with his uncanny insight, derived from knowl-
edge of himself, he had piercingly divined in "N. H." a
being, whatever he might be, whose nature acted auto-
matically and directly upon the subconscious self in every-
body.
That bright messenger, running past his life, had looked,
as with fire and tempest, straight into his eyes.
It was long after one o'clock when the two men said
good-night, and went to their rooms. Devonham was soon
in bed, though not soon asleep. Exhausted physically
though he was, his mind burned actively. His recent
62 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
memories were vivid. All he had purposely held back
from Fillery returned with power. . . .
The uncertainty whether he had experienced hallucina-
tion, or had actually, as by telepathic transfer from Le-
Vallon, touched another state of consciousness, kept sleep
far away. . . .
His brain was far too charged for easy slumber. He
feared for his dear, faithful friend, his colleague, the skil-
ful, experienced, yet sorely tempted mind tempted by
Nature and by natural weaknesses of birth and origin
who now shared with him the care and healing of a Case
that troubled his being too deeply for slumber to come
quickly.
Yet he had done well to keep these memories from
Edward Fillery. If Fillery once knew what he knew, his
judgment and his scientific diagnosis must be drawn hope-
lessly away from what he considered the best treatment:
the suppression of "N. H." and the making permanent of
"LeVallon." . . .
He fell asleep eventually, towards dawn, dreaming impos-
sible, radiant dreams of a world he might have hoped for,
yet could not, within the limits of his little cautious, accurate
mind, believe in. Dreams that inspire, yet sadden, haunted
his release from normal consciousness. Someone had
walked upon his life, leaving a growth of everlasting flowers
in their magical tread, though his mind his stolid, cautious
mind had no courage for the plucking. . . .
And while he slept, as the hours slipped from west to
east, his chief and colleague, lying also sleepless, rose sud-
denly before the late autumn dawn, and walked quietly
along the corridor towards the Private Suite where the new
patient rested. His mind was quiet, yet his inner mind
alert. His thoughts, his hopes, his dreams, these lay, per-
haps, beyond human computation. He was calmer far than
his assistant, though more strangely tempted.
It was just growing light, the corridor was cold. A cool,
damp air came through the open windows and the linoleum
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 63
felt like ice against the feet. The house lay dead and
silent. Pausing a moment by a window, he listened to the
chattering of early sparrows. He felt chill and hungry,
unrested too, though far from sleepy. He was aware of
London bleak, heavy, stolid London town. The troubles
of modern life, of Labour, Politics, Taxes, cost of living,
all the common, daily things came in with the cheerless
morning air.
He reached the door he sought, and very softly opened
it.
The radiance met him in the face, so that he almost
gasped. The scent of flowers, the sting of sharp, keen
forest winds, the exhilaration of some distant mountain-
top. There was, actually, a tang of dawn, known only to
those who have tasted the heights at sunrise with the heart.
And into his heart, singing with happy confidence, rose a
sense of supreme joy and confidence that mastered all little
earthly woes and pains, and walked among the stars.
The occupant of the bed lay very still. His shining hair
was spread upon the pillow. The splendid limbs were
motionless. The chest and arms were bare, the single
covering sheet tossed off. The strange, wild face wore
happiness and peace upon its skin, the features very calm,
the mouth relaxed. It almost seemed a god lay sleeping
there upon a little human bed.
How long he stood and stared he did not know, but
suddenly, the light increased. The curtains stirred about
the bed.
With a marvellous touch the separate details merged
and quickened into life. The room was changed. The
occupant of the bed moved very swiftly, as through the
open window came the first touch of exhilarating light.
Gold stole across the lintel, breaking over the roofs of slates
beyond. The leafless elm trees shimmered faintly. The
telegraph wires shone. There was a running sparkle. It
was dawn.
The figure leaped, danced no other word describes it
64 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
to the open window where the light and air gushed in,
spread wide its arms, lowered its radiant head, began to
sing in low, melodious rhythmic chant and Fillery, as
silently as he had come, withdrew and closed the door
unseen. His heart moved strangely, but his promise held
him. .
CHAPTER VII
r I ^HE following days it seemed to both Fillery and
J. Devonham that their discussion of the first night had
been pitched in too intense, too serious a key. Their patient
was so commonplace again, so ordinary. He made him-
self quite at home, seemed contented and uncurious, taking
it for granted he had come to stay for ever, apparently.
Apart from his strange beauty, his size, virility and a
general impression he conveyed of immense energies he
was too easy-going to make use of, he might have passed
for a peasant, a countryman to whom city life was new;
but an educated, or at least half-educated, countryman. He
was so big, yet never gauche. He was neither stupid nor
ill-informed ; the garden interested him, he knew much
about the trees and flowers, birds and insects too. He
discussed the weather, prevailing wind, moisture, prospects
of change and so forth with a judgment based on what
seemed a natural, instinctive knowledge. The gardener
looked on him with obvious respect.
"Such nice manners and such a steady eye," Mrs. Soames,
the matron, mentioned, too, approvingly to Devonham.
"But a lot in him he doesn't understand himself, unless
I'm wrong. Not much the matter with his nerves, any-
how. Once he's married unless I'm much mistaken eh,
sir?"
He was quiet, talking little, and spent the morning over
the books Fillery had placed purposely in his sitting-room,
books on simple physics, natural history and astronomy. It
was the latter that absorbed him most ; he pored over them
by the hour.
65
66 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Fillery explained the situation so far as he thought wise.
The young man was honesty and simple innocence, but only
vaguely interested in the life of the great city he now
experienced for the first time. He had in his luggage a
copy of the Will by which Mason had left him everything,
and he was pleased to know himself well provided for.
Of Mason, however, he had only a dim, uncertain, almost
an impersonal memory, as of someone encountered in a
dream.
"I suppose something's happened to me," he said to
Fillery, his language normal and quite ordinary again. He
spoke with a slight foreign accent. "There was somebody,
of course, who looked after me and lived with me, but I
can't remember who or where it was. I was very happy,"
he added, "and yet ... I miss something."
Dr. Fillery, remembering his promise, did not press him.
"It will all come back by degrees," he remarked in a
sympathetic tone. "In the meantime, you must make your-
self at home here with us, for as long as you like. You
are quite free in every way. I want you to be happy
here."
"I live with you always," was the reply. "There are
things I want to tell you, ask you too." He paused, look-
ing thoughtful. "There was someone I told all to once."
"Come to me with everything. I'll help you always, so
far as I can." He placed a hand upon his knee.
"There are feelings, big feelings I cannot reach quite,
but that make me feel different" he smiled beautifully
"from others." Quick as lightning he had changed the
sentence at the last word, substituting "others" for "you."
Had he been aware of a slight uneasy emotion in his
listener's heart? It had hardly betrayed itself by any visible
sign, yet he had instantly divined its presence. Such evi-
dences of a subtle, intimate, understanding were not lack-
ing. Yet Fillery admirably restrained himself.
"There are bright places I have lost," he went on frankly,
no sign of shy reserve in him. "I feel confused, lost some-
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 67
where, as if I didn't belong here. I feel" he used an odd
word "doubled." His face shaded a little.
"Big overpowering London is bound to affect you," put
in Fillery, who had noticed the rapid discernment, "after
living among woods and mountains, as you have lived, for
years. All will come right in a little time; we must settle
down a bit first "
"Woods and mountains," repeated the other, in a half-
dreamy voice, his eyes betraying an effort to follow thought
elsewhere. "Of course, yes woods and mountains and
hot living sunlight and the winds "
His companion shifted the conversation a little. He
suggested a line of reading and study. . . . They talked
also of such ordinary but necessary things as providing a
wardrobe, of food, exercise, companionship of his own
age, and so forth all the commonplace details of ordinary
daily life, in fact. The exchange betrayed nothing of inter-
est, nothing unusual. They mentioned theatres, music,
painting, and, beyond the natural curiosity of youth that
was ignorant of these, no detail was revealed that need
have attracted the attention of anybody, neither of doctor,
psychologist, nor student of human nature. With the single
exception that the past years had been obliterated from
memory, though much that had been acquired in them re-
mained, there was not noticeable peculiarity of any sort.
Both language and point of view were normal.
This was obviously LeVallon. The "N. H." personality
scarcely cast a shadow even. Yet "N. H.," the doctor was
quick to see, lay ready and waiting just below the surface.
There was no doubt in his mind which was the central
self and which its transient projection, the secondary per-
sonality. Again, as he sat and talked, he had the odd
impression that someone with bright tidings ran swiftly
past his life, perhaps towards it.
The swift messenger was certainly not LeVallon. Le-
Vallon, indeed, was but a shadow cast before this glad,
bright visitant. Thus he felt, at any rate. LeVallon was
68 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
an empty simulacrum left behind while "N. H." rested,
or was active upon other things, things natural to him,
elsewhere. LeVallon was an arm, a limb, a feeler that
"N. H." thrust out. At Charing Cross, for instance, for
a brief moment only, "N. H." had peered across his
shoulder, then withdrawn again. In the car had sat by
his side LeVallon. The being he now chatted with was
also LeVallon only.
But in his own heart, deep down, hidden yet eager to
break loose, lay his own deeper self that burned within him.
This, the important part of him, yearned towards "N. H."
And up rose the strange symbol that always appeared when
his deepest, perhaps his subliminal self was stirred. That
lost radiant valley in the haunted Caucasus shone close
and brimming over , . . with light, with flowers, with
splendid winds and fire, symbols of a vaster, grander, happier
life, though perhaps a life not yet within the range of
normal human consciousness. . . . The fiery symbol flashed
and passed.
Curious thoughts and pictures rose flaming in his mind,
persistent ideas that bore no possible relation to his intellec-
tual, reasoning life. Passing across the background of his
brain, as with waves of heat and colour, they were cor-
related somewhere with harmonious sound. Music, that is,
came with them, as though inspiration brought its own sound
with it that made singing natural. They haunted him, these
vague, pleasurable phantasmagoria that were connected, he
felt sure, with music, as with childhood's lost imaginings.
For a long time he searched in vain for their source and
origin. Then, suddenly, he remembered. He heard his
father's gruff, humorous voice: "There's not a scrap of
evidence, of course. . . ." And, sharply, vividly, the buried
memory gave up its dead. His childish question went
crashing through the air: "Are we the only beings in the
world?"
"Nothing is ever lost," he reminded himself with a smile
that Devonham assuredly never saw. "Every seed must
bear its fruit in time."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 69
And emotion surged through him from the remorseless
records of his underself. The childhood's love, with its
correlative of deep, absolute belief, returned upon him,
linked on somehow to that old familiar symbol he knew to
mean his awakening subconscious being a flowering
Caucasian vale of sun and wind. A belief, he realized,
especially a belief of childhood, remains for ever inex-
pugnable, eternal, prolific seed of future harvests.
The unstable in him betrayed its ineradicable, dangerous
streak. There rose upon him in a cloud strange notions
that inflamed imagination sweetly. Later reading, indeed,
had laid flesh upon the skeleton of the boyish notion, though
derived in the first instance he certainly knew not whence.
The literature and tradition of the East, he recalled, peopled
the elements with conscious life, to which the world's fairy-
tales remnant of lost knowledge possibly added nerves
and heart and blood. In all human bodies, at any
rate, dwelt not necessarily always human spirits, human
souls. . . .
He checked himself with a smile he would have liked to
call a chuckle, but that yet held some inexplicable happiness
at its heart. His rugged, eager face, its expression bitten
deeply by experience, turned curiously young. There rushed
through him the Eastern conception of another system of
life, another evolution, deathless, divine, important, the
Order of the Devas, a series of Nature Beings entirely
apart from human categories. They included many degrees,
from fairies to planetary spirits, the gods, so called; and
their duties, work and purposes were concerned, he remem-
bered, with carrying out the Laws of Nature, the busy
tending of all forms and structures, from the elaborately
marvellous infusoria in a drop of stagnant water, the growth
of crystals, the upbuilding of flowers and trees, of insects,
animals, humans, to the guidance and guardianship of those
vaster forms of heavenly bodies, the stars, the planets and
the mighty suns, whose gigantic "bodies," inhabited by
immenser consciousness, people empty space. ... A noble,
useful, selfless work, God's messengers. . . .
70 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
He checked himself again, as the rich, ancient notion
flitted across his stirring memory.
"Delightful, picturesque conceptions of the planet's
young, fair ignorance!" he reminded himself, smiling as
before.
Whereupon rose, bursting through his momentary dream,
with full-fledged power, the great hope of his own reasoned,
scientific Dream that man is greater than he knows, and
that the progress of the Race was demonstrable.
For, to the subliminal powers of an awakened Race these
Nature Beings with their special faculties, must lie open
and accessible. The human and the non-human could unite !
Nature must come back into the hearts of men and win
them again to simple, natural life with love, with joy, with
naked beauty. Death and disease must vanish, hope and
purity return. The Race must develop, grow, become in
the true sense universal. It could know God !
The vision flashed upon him with extraordinary convic-
tion, so that he forgot for the moment how securely he
belonged to the unstable. The smile of happiness spread,
as it were, over his entire being. He glowed and pulsed
with its delicious inward fire. Light filled his being for
an instant an instant of intoxicating belief and certainty
and vision. The instant inspiration of a dream went lost
and vanished. He had drawn upon childhood and legendary
reading for the substance of a moment's happiness. He
shook himself, so to speak. He remembered his patients
and his duties, his colleague too. . . .
Nothing, meanwhile, occurred to arouse interest or atten-
tion. Le Vallon was quite docile, ordinary; he needed no
watching; he slept well, ate well, spent his leisure with his
books and in the garden. He complained often of the lack
of sunlight, and sometimes he might be seen taking some
deep breaths of air into his lungs by the open window or
on the balcony. The phases of the moon, too, interested
him, and he asked once when the full moon would come
and then, when Devonham told him, he corrected the date
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 71
the latter gave, proving him two hours wrong. But, on the
whole, there seemed little to differentiate him from the
usual young man whose physique had developed in advance
of his mental faculties; his knowledge in some respects
certainly was backward, as in the case of arrested develop-
ment. He seemed an intelligent countryman, but an
unusually intelligent countryman, though all the time an-
other under-intelligence shone brightly, betraying itself in
remarks and judgments oddly phrased.
Dr. Fillery took him, during the following day or two,
to concerts, theatres, cinemas. He enjoyed them all. Yet
in the theatres he was inclined to let his attention wander.
The degree of alertness varied oddly. His critical standard,
moreover, was curiously exacting; he demanded the real
creative interpretation of a part, and was quick to detect
a lack of inspiration, of fine technique, of true conception
in a player. Reasons he failed to give, and argument seemed
impossible to him, but if voice or gesture or imaginative
touch failed anywhere, he lost interest in the performer
from that moment.
"He has poor breath," he remarked. "He only imitates.
He is outside." Or, "She pretends. She does not feel
and know. Feeling the feeling that comes of fire she
has not felt."
"She does not understand her part, you mean?" suggested
Fillery.
"She does not burn with it," was the reply.
At concerts he behaved individually too. They bored as
well as puzzled him; the music hardly stirred Him. He
showed signs of distress at anything classical, though
Wagner, Debussy, the Russians, moved him and produced
excitement.
"He," was his remark, with emphasis, "has heard. He
gives me freedom. I could fly and go away. He sets me
free . . ." and then he would say no more, not even in
reply to questions. He could not define the freedom he
referred to, nor could he say where he could go away to.
72
But his face lit up, he smiled his delightful smile, he looked
happy. "Stars," he added once in a tone of interest, in
reply to repeated questions, "stars, wind, fire, away from
this!" he tapped his head and breast "I feel more alive
and real."
"It's real and true, that music? That's what you feel?"
"It's beyond this," he replied, again tapping his body.
"They have heard."
The cinema interested him more. Yets its limits seemed
to perplex him more than its wonder thrilled him. He
accepted it as a simple, natural, universal thing.
"They stay always on the sheet," he observed with evident
surprise. "And I hear nothing. They do not even sing.
Sound and movement go together!"
"The speaking will come," explained Fillery. "Those are
pictures merely."
"I understand. Yet sound is natural, isn't it? They
ought to be heard."
"Speech," agreed his companion, "is natural, but singing
isn't."
"Are they not alive enough to sing?" was the reply,
spoken to himself rather than to his neighbour, who was
so attentive to his least response. "Do they only sing
when" Fillery heard it and felt something leap within
him "when they are paid or have an audience ?" he finished
the sentence quickly.
"No one sings naturally of their own accord not in
cities, at any rate," was the reply.
LeVallon laughed, as though he understood at once.
"There is no sun and wind," he murmured. "Of course.
They cannot."
It was the cinemas that provided most material for obser-
vation, Fillery found. There was in a cinema performance
something that excited his companion, but excited Him more
than the doctor felt he was justified in encouraging.
Obviously the other side of him, the "N. H." aspect, came
up to breathe under the stimulus of the rapid, wor!3-embrac-
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 73
ing, space-and-time destroying pictures on the screen.
Concerts did not stimulate him, it seemed, but rather puzzled
him. He remained wholly the commonplace LeVallon
with one exception: he drew involved patterns on the edge
of his programmes, patterns of a very complicated yet
accurate kind, as though he almost saw the sounds that
poured into his ears. And these ornamented programmes
Dr. Fillery preserved. Sound music seemed to belong
to his interpretation of movement. About the cinema, how-
ever, there seemed something almost familiar, something
he already knew and understood, the sound belonging to
movement only lacking.
Apart from these small incidents, LeVallon showed noth-
ing unusual, nothing that a yokel untaught yet of natural
intelligence might not have shown. His language, perhaps,
was singular, but, having been educated by one mind only,
and in a region of lonely forests and mountains, remote
from civilized life, there was nothing inexplicable in the
odd words he chose, nor in the peculiar if subtle and
penetrating phrases that he used. Invariably he recognized
the spontaneous, creative power as distinguished from the
derivative that merely imitated.
He found ways of expressing himself almost immediately,
both in speech and writing, however, and with a perfection
far beyond the reach of a half-educated country lad; and
this swift aptitude was puzzling until its explanation sud-
denly was laid bare. He absorbed, his companion realized
at last, as by telepathy, the content of his own, of Fillery's
mind, acquiring the latter's mood, language, ideas, as though
the two formed one being.
The discovery startled the doctor. Yet what startled
him still more was the further discovery, made a little
later, that he himself could, on occasions, become so identi-
fied with his patient that the slightest shade of thought
or feeling rose spontaneously in his own mind too.
He remained, otherwise, almost entirely "LeVallon" ; and,
after a full report made to Devonham, and the detailed
74 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
discussion thereon that followed, Dr. Fillery had no evi-
dence to contradict the latter's opinion: "LeVallon is the
real true self. The other personality 'N. H.' as we call it
is a mere digest and accumulation of material supplied
by his parents and by Mason."
"Let us wait and see what happens when 'N. H.' appears
and does something," Fillery was content to reply.
"If," answered Devonham, with sceptical emphasis, "it
ever does appear."
"You think it won't?" asked Fillery.
"With proper treatment," said Devonham decisively, "I
see no reason why 'N. H.' should not become happily
merged in the parent self in LeVallon, and a permanent
cure result."
He put his glasses straight and stared at his chief, as
much as to say "You promised."
"Perhaps," said Fillery. "But, in my judgment, 'Le-
Vallon' is too slight to count at all. I believe the whole,
real, parent Self is 'N. H.,' and the only life LeVallon has
at all is that which peeps up through him from 'N. H.' "
Fillery returned his serious look.
"If 'N. H.' is the real self, and I am right," he added
slowly, "you, Paul, will have to revise your whole position."
"I shall," returned Devonham. "But you will allow
this it is a lot to expect. I see no reason to believe in
anything more than a subconscious mind of unusual content,
and possibly of unusual powers and extent," he added with
reluctance.
"It is," said Fillery significantly, "a lot to expect as you
said just now. I grant you that. Yet I feel it possible
that " he hesitated.
Devonham looked uncomfortable. He fidgeted. He did
not like the pause. A sense of exasperation rose in him,
as though he knew something of what was coming.
"Paul," went on his chief abruptly in a tone that dropped
instinctively to a lower key almost a touch of awe lay
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 75
behind it "you admit no deity, I know, but you admit
purpose, design, intelligence."
"Well," replied the other patiently, long experience hav-
ing taught him iron restraint, "it's a blundering, imperfect
system, inadequately organized if you care to call that
intelligence. It's of an extremely intricate complexity. I
admit that. Deity I consider an unnecessary assumption."
"The love and hate of atoms alone bowls you over,"
was the unexpected comment. "The word 'Laws' explains
nothing. A machine obeys the laws, but intelligence con-
ceived that machine and a man repairs and keeps it going.
Who what keeps the daisy going, the crystal, the creative
thought in the imagination? An egg becomes a leaf -eating
caterpillar, which in turn becomes a honey-eating butterfly
with wings. A yolk turns into feathers. Is that accom-
plished without intelligence?"
"Ask our new patient," interrupted Devonham, wiping
his glasses with unnecessary thoroughness.
"Which?"
Devonham startled, looked up without his glasses. It
seemed the question made him uneasy. Putting the glasses
on suddenly, he stared at his chief.
"I see what you mean, Edward," he said earnestly, his
interest deeply captured. "Be careful. We know nothing,
remember, nothing of life. Don't jump ahead like this
or take your dreams for reality. We have our duty in
a case like this."
Fillery smiled, as though to convey that he remembered
his promise.
"Humanity," he replied, "is a very small section of the
universe. Compared to the minuter forms of life, which
may be quite as important, if not more so, the human
section is even negligible ; while, compared to the possibility
of greater forms " He broke off abruptly. "As you
say, Paul, we know nothing of life after all, do we? Noth-
ing, less than nothing! We observe and classify a few
76 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
results, that's all. We must beware of narrow prejudice,
at any rate you and I."
His eyes lost their light, his speech dried up, his ideas,
dreams, speculations returned to him unrewarded z unex-
pressed. With natures in whom the subconscious never
stirred, natures through whom its magical fires cast no
faintest upward gleam, intercourse was ever sterile, unpro-
ductive. Such natures had no background. Even a fact,
with them, was detached from its true big life, its full
significance, its divine potentialities ! . . .
"We must beware of prejudice," he repeated quietly.
"We seek truth only."
"We must beware," replied Devonham, as he shrugged
his shoulders, "of suggestion of auto-suggestion above all.
We must remember how repressed desires dramatize them-
selves especially," he added significantly, "when aided by
imagination. We seek only facts." On his face appeared
swiftly, before it vanished again, an expression of keen
anxiety, almost of affliction, yet tempered, as it were, by
surprise and wonder, by pity possibly, and certainly by
affection.
CHAPTER VIII
TO Devonham, meanwhile, LeVallon's behaviour was
polite and kind and distant ; he did not show distrust
of any sort, but he betrayed a certain diffidence, reserve
and caution. Trust he felt ; sympathy he did not feel. To
the amusement of Fillery, he suggested almost a kind of
mild contempt when dealing with him, and this amusement
was increased by the fact that it obviously annoyed Devon-
ham, while it gratified his chief. For towards Fillery,
LeVallon behaved with an intimate and understanding
sympathy that proved his instantaneous affection based upon
mutual comprehension. It seemed that LeVallon and Fillery
had known one another always.
It was doubtless, due to this innate sympathy between
them that Edward FHlery's rare gift of absorbing the con-
tent of another's mind, even to the point of taking on
that other's conditions, physical and emotional at the
same time, was so successful. By means of a highly
developed power of auto-suggestion, he had learned so to
identify his own mind, thought, feeling with those of a
patient, that there resulted a kind of merging by which
he literally became that patient. He felt with him. As a
subject sees the pictures in the hypnotiser's mind, perceives
his thoughts, divines his slightest will, so Fillery, reversing
the process, could realize for the moment exactly what his
patient was thinking, feeling, desiring. It was of great
use to him in his strange practice.
This gift, naturally, varied in degree, and was not in-
variably successful. In some cases he only felt, the emotion
alone being thus transferred; in others he only saw what
the patient saw, or thought he saw, the accompanying
77
78 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
emotion being omitted ; in others again, as in cases of vision
at a distance, either of time or space, he had been able to
follow the "travelling sight" of his patient, whose con-
sciousness in trance was operating far away, and thus to
check for subsequent verification exactly what that patient
saw. He had shared strange experiences with others
with a man, for instance, in whom sight was transferred
to the tip of his index finger, so that he could read a book
by passing that finger along the printed line ; with a woman,
again, in whom "exteriorized consciousness" manifested it-
self, so that, if the air several inches from her face was
pinched or struck, the impact was received and an actual
bruise produced upon her skin.
This extension of consciousness, its seeds already in his
nature, he had trained and developed to a point where he
could almost rely upon auto-suggestion bringing about
quickly the desired conditions. Its success, however, as
mentioned, was variable. With "N. H.," especially now,
this variableness was marked; sometimes it was so easily
accomplished as to seem natural and without a conscious
effort, while at other times it failed completely. Since it
was in no sense an attempt to transfer anything from his
own mind to that of the patient, Fillery felt that his promise
to his colleague was not involved.
The following scene describes the first time in which the
process took place with his new patient. Fillery himself
wrote down the words, supplied the detailed description,
filled in the emotion and psychology, but exactly as these
occurred and as he felt them, both when these took place,
respectively, in his own consciousness and in that of his
patient. Part of the time he was present, part of it he
was not visibly so, being screened from observation, yet
so placed that he could note everything that happened. It
is clear, however, that his mind was so intimately en rapport
with the thoughts and feelings of "N. H.," that he ex-
perienced in his own being all that "N. H." experienced.
The description was written immediately after the occur-
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 79
rence, though some of it, the spoken language in particular,
was jotted down in his hiding place at the actual moment.
The interlacing of the two minds, their interpenetration,
as it were, one occasionally dominating the other, is curious
to trace and far from difficult to disentangle. Similarly
the interweaving of LeVallon and "N. H." is noticeable.
The description given by Devonham of the portion of the
occurrence he witnessed personally, or heard about from
Nurse Robbins and the attendants this description reduces
the whole thing to the commonplace level of "a slight
seizure accompanied by signs of violence and moments of
delirium due to excitement and fatigue, and soon cured
by sleep."
The occurrence took place precisely at the period when
the moon was at the full.
CHAPTER IX
THE body I'm in and using is 22, as they call it, and
from a man named Mason, a geologist, I receive sums
of money, regularly paid, with which I live. They call it
"live." A roof and walls protect me, who do not need
protection; my body, which it irks, is covered with wool
and cloth and stuff, fitting me as bark fits a tree and yet
not part of me ; my feet, which love the touch of earth and
yearn for it, are cased in dead dried skin called leather;
even my head and hair, which crave the sun and wind,
are covered with another piece of dead dried skin, shaped
like a shell, but an ugly shell, in which, were it shaped
otherwise, the wind and rustling leaves might sing with
flowers.
Before 22 I remember nothing nothing definite, that is.
I opened my eyes in a soft, but not refreshing case standing
on four iron legs, and well off the ground, and covered with
coarse white coverings piled thickly on my body. It was a
bed. Slabs of transparent stuff kept out the living sunshine
for which I hungered ; thick solid walls shut off the wind ;
no stars or moon showed overhead, because an enormous lid
hid every bit of sky. No dew, therefore, lay upon the
sheets. I smelt no earth, no leaves, no flowers. No single
natural sound entered except the chattering of dirty
sparrows which had lost its freshness. I was in a hospital.
One comely figure alone gave me a little joy. It was
soft and slim and graceful, with a smell of fern and morn-
ing in its hair, though that hair was lustreless and balled
up in ugly lumps, with strips of thin metal in it. They
called it nurse and sister. It was the first moving thing I
saw when my eyes opened on my limited and enclosed
surroundings. My heart beat quicker, a flash of thin joy
80
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 81
came up in me. I had seen something similar before some-
where ; it reminded me, I mean, of something I had known
elsewhere; though but a shabby, lifeless, clumsy copy of
this other glorious thing. Though not real, it stirred this
faint memory of reality, so that I caught at the skirts of
moonlight, stars and flowers reflected in a forest pool where
my companion played for long periods of happiness be-
tween our work. The perfume and the eyes did that. I
watched it for a bit, as it moved away, came close and
looked at me. When the eyes met mine, a wave of life,
but of little life, surged faintly through me.
They were dim and pitiful, these eyes; mournful, unlit,
unseeing. The stars had set in them ; dull shadows crowded.
They were so small. They were hungry too. They were
unsatisfied. For some minutes it puzzled me, then I under-
stood. That was the word unsatisfied. Ah, but I could
alter that ! I could comfort, help, at any rate* My strength,
though horribly clipped and blocked, could manage a little
thing like that ! My smaller rhythms I could put into it.
The eyes, the smile, the whole soft comely bundle, so
pitifully hungry and unsatisfied, I rose and seized, pressing
it close inside my own great arms, and burying it all against
my breast. I crushed it, but very gently, as I might crush
a sapling. My lips were amid the ferny hair. I breathed
upon it willingly, glad to help.
It was a poor unfinished thing, I felt at once, soft and
yielding where it should have been resilient and elastic as
fresh turf; the perfume had no body, it faded instantly;
there was so little life in it.
But, as I held it in my big embrace, smothering its
hunger as best I could within my wave of being, this bundle,
this poor pitiful bundle, screamed and struggled to get free.
It bit and scratched and uttered sounds like those squeaks
the less swift creatures make when the swifter overtake
them.
I was too surprised to keep it to me ; I relaxed my hold.
The instant I did so the figure, thus released, stood upright
82 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
like a young birch the wind sets free. The figure looked
alive. The hair fell loose, untidily, the puny face wore
colour, the eyes had fire in them. I saw that fire. It was
a message. Memory stirred faintly in me.
"Ah !" I cried. "I've helped you anyhow a little !"
The scene that followed filled me with such trouble and
bewilderment that I cannot recall exactly what occurred.
The figure seemed to spit at me, yet not with grace and
invitation. There was no sign of gratitude. I was entirely
misunderstood, it seemed. Bells rang, as the figure rushed
to the door and flung it open. It called aloud ; similar,
though quite lifeless figures came in answer and filled the
room. A doctor Devonham, they called him followed
them. I was most carefully examined in a dozen curious
ways that tickled my skin a little so that I smiled. But I
lay quite still and silent, watching the whole performance
with a confusion in my being that baffled my comprehend-
ing what was going on. Most of the figures were frightened.
Then the doctor gave place to Fillery, whose name has
rhythm.
To him I spoke at once:
"I wished to comfort and revive her," I told him. "She
is so starved. I was most gentle. She brings a message
only."
He made no reply, but gazed at me with the corners of
his mouth both twitching, and in his eyes ah, his eyes had
more of the sun in them a flash of something that had
known fire, at least, if it had not kept it.
"My God! I worship thee," I murmured at the glimpse
of the Power I must own as Master and creator of my
being. "Even when thou art playful, I adore thee and
obey."
Then four other figures, shaped like the doctor but wholly
mechanical, a mere blind weight operating through them,
held my arms and legs. Not the least desire to move was
in me luckily. I say "luckily," because, had I wished it,
I could have flung them through the roof, blown down the
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 83
little walls, caught up a dozen figures in my arms, and
rushed forth with them towards the Powers of Fire and
Wind to which I belonged.
Could I ? I felt that I could. The sight of the true fire,
small though it was, in the comely figure's and the doctor's
eyes, had set me in touch again with my home and origin.
This touch I had somehow lost; I had been "ill," with
what they called nervous disorder and injured reason. The
lost touch was now restored. But, luckily, as I said, there
was no desire in me to set free these other figures, to help
them in any way, after the reception my first kindly effort
had experienced. I lay quite still, held by these four
grotesque and puny mechanisms. The comely one, with the
others similar to her, had withdrawn. I felt very kindly
towards them all, but especially towards the doctor, Fillery,
who had shown that he knew my deity and origin. None of
them were worth much trouble, anyhow. I felt that too. A
mild, sweet-toned contempt was in me.
"Dangerous," was a word I caught them whispering as
they went. I laughed a little. The four faces over me made
odd grimaces, tightening their lips, and gripping my legs
and arms with greater effort. The doctor Fillery
noticed it.
"Easy, remember," he addressed the four. "There's
really no need to hold. It won't recur." I nodded. We
understood one another. And, with a smile at me, he left
the room, saying he would come back after a short interval.
A link with my source, a brother as it were, went with him.
I was lonely. ., . .
I began to hum songs to myself, little fragments of a
great natural music I had once known but lost, and I
noticed that the four figures, as I sang, relaxed their grip
of my limbs considerably. To tell the truth, I forgot
that they were holding me ; their grip, anyhow, was but
a thread I could snap without the smallest effort. The
songs were happiness in me. Upon free leaping rhythms
I careered with an exhilarating rush of liberty; all about
84 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
space I soared and sank; I was picked up, flung far,
riding the crest of immense waves of orderly vibration
that delighted me. I let myself go a bit, let my voice
out, I mean. No effort accompanied my singing. It was
automatic, like breathing almost. It was natural to me.
These rhythmical sounds and the patterns that they
wove in space were the outlines of forms it was my work
to build. This expressed my nature. Only my power
was blocked and stifled in this confining body. The fire
and air which were my tools I could not control. I have
forgotten forgotten !
"Got a voice, ain't he?" observed one of the figures
admiringly.
"Lunies can do 'most anything they have a mind to."
"Grand Opera isn't it."
"Yes," mentioned the fourth, "but he'll lift the roof
off presently. We'd better stop him before there's any
trouble."
I stopped of myself, however : their remarks interested
me. Also while I had been singing, although I called it
humming only, they had gradually let go of me, and were
now sitting down on my bed and staring with quite
pleasant faces. All their dim eight eyes were fixed on
me. Their forms were not built well.
"Where did you get that from, Guv'nor?" asked the
one who had spoken first. "Can you give me the name
of it?"
The sound of his own voice was like the scratching
of a pin after the enormous rhythm that now ceased.
"Ain't printed, is it?" he went on, as I stared, not
understanding what he meant. "I've got a sister at the-
Halls," he explained. "She'd make a hit with that kind
of thing. Gave me quite a twist inside to hear it," he
added, turning to the others.
The others agreed solemnly with dull stupid faces. I
lay and listened to their talk. I longed to help them.
I had forgotten how.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 85
"A bit churchy, I thought it," said one. "But, I con-
fess, it stirred me up."
"Churchy or not, it's the stuff," insisted the first.
"Oh, it's the stuff to give 'em, right enough." And they
looked at me admiringly again. "Where did you get it, if
I may ask ?" replied Number One in a more respectful tone.
,His face looked quite polite. The lips stretched, showing
yellow teeth. It was his smile. But his eyes were a little
more real. Oh ; where was my fire ? I could have built the
outline better so that he was real and might express far
more. I have forgotten !
"I hear it," I told him, "because I'm in it. It's all about
me. It never stops. It's what we build with "
Number One seemed greatly interested.
"Hear it, do you? Why, that's odd now. You see"
he looked at his companions apologetically, as though he
knew they would not believe him "my father was like that.
He heard his music, he always used to say, but we laughed
at him. He was a composer by trade. Oh, his stuff was
printed too. Of course," he added, "there's musical talent
in the family," as though that explained everything. He
turned to me again. "Give us a little more, Mister if you
don't object, that is," he added. And his face was soft as
he said it. "Only gentle like if you don't mind."
"Yes, keep it down a bit," another put in, looking
anxiously in the direction of the closed door. He patted
the air with his open palm, slowly, carefully, as though he
patted an animal that might rise and fly at him.
I hummed again for them, but this time with my lips
closed. The waves of rhythm caught me up and away. I
soared and flew and dropped and rose again upon their
huge coloured crests. Curtains and sheets of quiet flame in
palest gold flared shimmering through the sound, while
winds that were full of hurricanes and cyclones swept down
to lift the fire and dance with it in spirals. The perfume of
great flowers rose. There were flowers everywhere, and
stars shone through it all like showers of gold. Ah ! I began
86 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
to remember something. It was flowers and stars as well
as human forms we worked to build. . ., .
But I kept the fire from leaping into actual flame; the
mighty winds I held back. Even thus pent and checked,
their powerful volume made the atmosphere shake and pulse
about us. Only I could not control them now. . . . With
an effort I came back, came down, as it were, and saw the
funny little faces staring at me with opened eyes and
mouths, and yellow teeth, pale gums, their skins gone
whitish, their figures rigid with their tense emotion. They
were so poorly made, the patterns so imperfect. The new
respect in their manner was marked plainly. Suddenly all
four turned together towards the door. I stopped. The
doctor had returned. But it was Fillery again. I liked
the feel of him.
"He wanted to sing, sir, so we let him. It seemed to
relieve him a bit," they explained quickly and with an air
of helpless apology.
"Good, good," said the doctor. "Quite good. Any
normal expression that brings relief is good." He dismissed
them. They went out, casting back at me expressions of
puzzled thanks and interest. The door closed behind them.
The doctor seated himself beside me and took my hand. I
liked his touch. His hand was alive, at any rate, although
within my own it felt rather like a dying branch or bunch
of leaves I grasped. The life, if thin, was real.
"Where's the rest of it?" I asked him, meaning the
music. "I used to have it all. It's left me, gone away.
What's cut it off?"
"You're not cut off really," he said gently. "You can
always get into it again when you really need it." He gazed
at me steadily for a minute, then said in his quiet voice
a full, nice tone with wind through a forest running in it :
"Mason. ... Dr. Mason. . ."
He said no more, but watched me. The name stirred
something in me I could not get at quite. I could not reach
down to it. I was troubled by a memory I could not seize.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 87
"Mason," I repeated, returning his strong gaze. "What
who was Mason? And where?" I connected the name
with a sense of liberty, also with great winds and pools of
fire, with great figures of golden skin and radiant faces, with
music, too, the music that had left me.
"You've forgotten for the moment," came the deep run-
ning voice I liked. "He looked after you for twenty years.
He gave his life for you. He loved you. He loved your
mother. Your father was his friend."
"Has he gone gone back ?"
"He's dead."
"I can get after him though," I said, for the name touched
me with a sense of lost companionship I wanted, though
the reference to my father and mother left me cold. "I
can easily catch him up. When I move with my wind and
fire, the fastest things stand still." My own speed, once
I was free again, I knew outpaced easily the swiftest bird,
outpaced light itself."
"Yes," agreed the doctor; "only he doesn't want that
now. You can always catch him up when the time comes.
Besides, he's waiting for you anyhow."
I knew that was true. I sank back comforted upon the
stuffy pillows and lay silent. This tinkling chatter wearied
me. It was like trickling wind. I wanted the flood of
hurricanes, the pulse of storms. My building, shaping
powers, my great companions oh! where were they?
"He taught you himself, taught you all you know," I
heard the tinkling go on again, "but he kept you away
from life, thinking it was best. He was afraid for you,
afraid for others too. He kept you in the woods and moun-
tains where, as he believed, you could alone express yourself
and so be happy. A hundred times, in babyhood and early
childhood, you nearly died. He nursed you back to life.
His own life he renounced. Now he is dead. He has left
you all his money."
He paused. I said no word. Faint memories passed
through my mind, but nothing I could hold and seize. The
88 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
money I did not understand at all, except that it was neces-
sary.
"He thought at first that you could not possibly live to
manhood. To his surprise you survived everything ill-
ness, accident, disaster of every sort and kind. Then, as
you grew up, he realized his mistake. Instead of keeping
you away from life, he ought to have introduced you to it
and explained it as I and Devonham are now trying to
do. You could not live for ever alone in woods and
mountains; when he was gone there would be no one to
look after you and guide you."
The trickling of wind went on and on. I hardly listened
to it. He did it for his own pleasure, I suppose. It pleased
and soothed him possibly. Yet I remembered every syllable.
It was a small detail to keep fresh when my real memory
covered the whole planet.
"Before he died, he recognized his mistake and faced the
position boldly. It was some years before the end ; he was
hale and hearty still, yet the end, he knew, was in sight.
While the power was still strong in him, therefore, he did
the only thing left to him to do. He used his great powers.
He used suggestion. He hypnotized you, telling you to for~
get from the moment of his death, but not before forget
everything It was only partially successful."
The door opened, the comely figure glanced in, then
vanished.
"She wants more help from me," I interrupted the
monotonous tinkling instantly, for pity stirred in me again
as I saw her eager, hungry and unsatisfied little eyes. "Call
her back. I feel quite willing. It is one of the lower
forms we made. I can improve it."
Dr. Fillery, as he was called, looked at me steadily, his
mouth twitching at the corners as before, a flash of fire
flitting through his eyes. The fire made me like and trust
him; the twitching, too, I liked, for it meant he knew how
absurd he was. Yet he was bigger than the other figures.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 89
"You can't do that," he said, "you mustn't," and then
laughed outright. "It isn't done, you know here."
"Why not, sir?" I asked, using the terms the figures
used. "I feel like that."
"Of course, you do. But all you feel can't be expressed
except at the proper times and places. The consent of the
other party always is involved," he went on slowly, "when
it's a question of expressing anything you feel."
This puzzled me, because in this particular instance the
other party had asked me with her eyes to comfort her. I
told him this. He laughed still more. Caught by the sound
it was just like wind passing among tall grasses on a
mountain ridge I forgot what he was talking about for the
moment. The sound carried me away towards my own
rhythms.
"You've got such amazing insight," he went on tinkling
to himself, for I heard, although I did not listen. "You
read the heart too easily, too quickly. You must learn to
hide your knowledge." The laughter which ran with the
words then ended, and I came back to the last thing I had
definitely listened to "express, expressing," was the phrase
he used.
"You told me that self-expression is the purpose "for
which I'm here ?"
"I believe it is," he agreed, more solemnly.
"Only sometimes, then ?"
"Exactly. If that expression involves another in pain
or trouble or discomfort "
"Ah ! I have to choose, you mean. I have to know first
what the other feels about it."
I began to understand better. It was a game. And all
games delighted me.
"You may put it roughly so, yes," he explained, "you're
very quick. I'll give you a rule to guide you," he went
on. I listened with an effort; this tinkling soon wearied
me; I could not think long or much; my way, it seemed,
90 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
was feeling. "Ask yourself always how what you do will
affect another," Dr. Fillery concluded. "That's a safe rule
for you."
"That is of children," I observed. We stared at each
other a moment. "Both sides keep it?" I asked.
"Childish," he agreed, "it certainly is. Both sides, yes,
keep it."
I sighed, and the sigh seemed to rise from my very feet,
passing through my whole being. He looked at me most
kindly then, asking why I sighed.
"I used to be free," I told him. "This is not liberty.
And why are we not all free together ?"
"It is liberty for two instead of only for one," he said,
"and so, in the long run, liberty for all."
"So that's where they are," I remarked, but to myself and
not to him. "Not further than that." For what I had once
known, but now, it seemed, forgotten, was far beyond such
a foolish little game. We had lived without such tiny
tricks. We lived openly and unafraid. We worked in
harmony. We lived. Yes but who was "we" ? That was
the part I had forgotten.
"It's the growth and development of civilization," I heard
the little drift of wind go whistling thinly, "and it won't
take you long to become quite civilized at this rate, more
civilized, indeed, than most with your swift intelligence
and lightning insight."
"Civilization," I repeated to myself. Then I looked at
his eyes which hid carefully in their depths somewhere that
tiny cherished flame I loved. "Your ways are really very
simple," I said. "It's all easy enough to learn. It is so
small."
"A man studying ants," he tinkled, "finds them small,
but far from simple. You may find complications later. If
so, come to me."
I promised him, and the fire gleamed faintly in his eyes
a moment. "He entrusted you to me. Your mother," he
added softly, "was the woman he loved."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 91
"Civilization," I repeated, for the word set going an odd
new rhythm in me that I rather liked, and that tired me less
than the other things he said. "What is it then? You are
a Race, you told me."
"A Race of human beings, of men and women "develop-
ing "
"The comely ones ?"
"Are the women. Together we make up the Race."
"And civilization?"
"Is realizing that we are a community, learning, growing,
all its members living for the others as well as for them-
selves."
Dr. Fillery told me then about men and women and sex,
how children are made, and what enormous and endless
work was necessary merely to keep them all alive and
clothed and sheltered before they could accomplish anything
else of any sort at all. Half the labour of the majority was
simply to keep alive at all. It was an ugly little system
he described. Much I did not hear, because my thinking
powers gave out. Some of it gave me an awful feeling he
called pain. The confusion and imperfection seemed beyond
repair, even beyond the worth of being part of it, of belong-
ing to it at all. Moreover, the making of children, without
which the whole thing must end, gave me spasms of irrita-
tion he called laughter. Only the Comely Ones, and what
he told me of them, made me want to sing.
"The men," I said, "but do they see that it is ugly and
ludicrous and "
"Comic," he helped me.
"Do they know," I asked, taking his unknown words,
"that it's comic?"
"The glamour," he said, "conceals it from them. To the
best among them it is sacred even."
"And the Comely Ones?"
"It is their chief mission," he replied. "Always remem-
ber that. It's sacred." He fixed his kind eyes gravely on
my face.
92 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"Ah, worship, you mean," I said. "I understand." Again
we stared for some minutes. "Yet all are not comely, are
they?'" I asked presently.
The fire again shone faintly in his eyes as he watched
me a moment without answering. It caught me away. I
am not sure I heard his words, but I think they ran like
this:
"That's just the point where civilization so far has
always stopped."
I remember he ceased tinkling then ; our talk ceased too.
I was exhausted. He told me to remember what he had
said, and to lie down and rest. He rang the bell, and a
man, one of the four who had held me, came in.
"Ask Nurse Robbins to come here a moment, please," he
said. And a moment later the Comely One entered softly
and stood beside my bed. She did not look at me. Dr.
Fillery began again his little tinkling. ". . . wishes to
apologize to you most sincerely, nurse, for his mistake.
He meant no harm, believe me. There is no danger in him,
nor will he ever repeat it. His ignorance of our ways, I
must ask you to believe "
"Oh, it's nothing, sir," she interrupted. "I've quite for-
gotten it already. And usually he's as good as gold and
perfectly quiet." She blushed, glancing shyly at me with
clear invitation.
"It will not recur," repeated the Doctor positively. "He
has promised me. He is very, very sorry and ashamed."
The nurse looked more boldly a moment. I saw her silver
teeth. I saw the hint of soft fire in her poor pitiful eyes,
but far, far away and, as she thought, safely hidden.
"Pitiful one, I will not touch you," I said instantly. "I
know that you are sacred."
I noticed at once that her sweet natural perfume increased
about her as I said the words, but her eyes were lowered,
though she smiled a little, and her little cheeks grew
coloured. I saw her small teeth of silvery marble again.
Our work was visible. I liked it.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 93
"You have promised me," said Dr. Fillery, rising to go
out.
"I promise," I said, while the Comely One was arranging
my pillows and sheets with quick, clever hands, sometimes
touching my cheek on purpose as she did so. "I will not
worship, unless it is commanded of me first. The increased
sweetness of her smell will tell me."
But indeed already I had forgotten her, and I no longer
realized who it was that tripped about my bed, doing
numerous little things to make me comfortable. My friend,
the understanding one, companion of my big friend, Mason,
who was dead, also had left the room. His twitching mouth,
his laughter, and his shining eyes were gone. I was aware
that the Comely One remained, doing all manner of little
things about me and my bed, unnecessary things, but my
pity and my worship were not asked, so I forgot her. My
thinking had wearied me, and my feeling was not touched.
I began to hum softly to myself ; my giant rhythms rose ; I
went forth towards my Powers of Wind and Fire, full of
my own natural joy. I forgot the Race with its men, its
women, its rules and games, its tiny tricks, its civilization.
I was free for a little with my own.
One detail interfered a little with the rhythms, but only
for a second and very faintly even then. The Comely One's
face grew dark.
"He's gone off asleep actually," I heard her mutter, as
she left the room with a fling of her little skirts, shutting
the door behind her with a bang.
That bang was far away. I was already rising and
falling in that natural happy state which to me meant free-
dom. It is hard to tell about, but that dear Fillery knows,
I am sure, exactly what I know, though he has forgotten
it. He has known us somewhere, I feel. He understands
our service. But, like me, he has forgotten too.
What really happened to me? Where did I go, what
did I see and feel when my rhythms took me off?
94 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Thinking is nowhere in it I can tell him that. I am
conscious of the Sun.
One difficulty is that my being here confuses me. Here
I am already caught, confined and straitened. I am within
certain limits. I can only move in three ways, three measure-
ments, three dimensions. The space I am in here allows
only little rhythms ; they are coarse and slow and heavy,
and beat against confining walls as it were, are thrown back,
cross and recross each other, so that while they themselves
grow less, their confusion grows greater. The forms and
outlines I can build with them are poor and clumsy and
insignificant. Spirals I cannot make. Then I forget.
Into these small rhythms I cannot compress myself ; the
squeezing hurts. Yet neither can I make them bigger to
suit myself. I would break forth towards the Sun.
Thus I feel cramped, confused and crippled. It is almost
impossible to tell of my big rhythms, for it is an attempt
to tell of one thing in terms of another. How can I fix fire
and wind upon the point of a pin, for instance, and examine
them through a magnifying-glass? The Sun remains. What
I experience, really, when I go off into my own freedom is
release. My rhythms are of the Sun. They are his messen-
gers, they are my law, they are my life and happiness. By
means of them I fulfill the purpose of my being. I work,
so Fillery calls it. I build.
That, at any rate, is literally true. My thinking stops
at that point, perhaps; but "I think" I mean by "release"
that I escape back from being trapped by all these
separate little individualities, human beings each working
on his own, for his own, and against all the others escape
from this stifling tangle into the sweep of my big rhythms
which work together and in unison. I search for lost
companions, but do not find them the golden skins and
ladiant faces, the mighty figures and the splendid shapes.
They work without effort, however. That is another
difference.
I, too, work, only I work with them, and never against
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 95
them. I can draw upon them as they can draw upon me.
We do draw on one another. We know harmony. Service
is our method and system.
My dear Fillery also wants to know who "we" are. How
can I tell him? The moment I try to "think," I seem to
forget. This forgetting, indeed, is one of the limits against
which I bang myself, so that I am flung back upon the
tangle of criss-cross, tiny rhythms which confuse and
obliterate the very thing he wants to know. Yet the Sun I
never forget father of fire and wind.. My companions are
lost temporarily. I am shut off from them. It seems I
cannot have them and the Race at the same time. I yearn
and suffer to rejoin them. The service we all know together
is great joy. Of love, this love between two isolated indi-
viduals the Race counts the best thing they have we know
nothing.
Now, here is one thing I can understand quite clearly :
I have watched and helped the Race, as he calls it, for
countless ages. Yet from outside it. Never till now have
I been inside its limits with it. And a dim sense of having
watched it through a veil or curtain comes to me. I can
faintly recall that I tried to urge my big rhythms in among
its members, as great waves of heat or sound might be
launched upon an ant-heap. I used to try to force and pro-
ject my vast rhythms into their tiny ones, hoping to make
these latter swell and rise and grow but never with success.
Though a few members, here and there, felt them and
struggled to obey and use their splendid swing, the rest did
not seem to notice them at all. . . . Indeed, they objected
to the struggling efforts of the few who did feel them, for
their own small accustomed rhythms were interfered with.
The few were generally broken into little pieces and pushed
violently out of the way.
And this made me feel pitiful, I remember dimly; because
these smaller rhythms, though insignificant, were exquisite.
They were of extraordinary beauty. Could they only have
been increased, the Race that knew and used them must
96 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
have changed my own which, though huge and splendid of
their kind, lacked the intense, perfect loveliness of the
smaller kind.
The Race, had it accepted mine and mastered them, must
have carried themselves and me towards still mightier
rhythms which I alone could never reach.
This, then, is clear to me, though very faint now. Fillery,
who can think for a long time, instead of like me for
seconds only, will understand what I mean. For if I tell
him what "we" did, he may be able to think out what "we"
were.
"Your work?" he asked me too.
I'm not sure I know what he means by "work." We were
incessantly active, but not for ourselves. There was no
effort. There was easy and sure accomplishment in the
sense that nothing could stop or hinder our fulfilling our
own natures. Obstacles, indeed, helped our power and made
it greater, for everything feeds fire and opposition adds to
the pressure of wind. Our main activity was to make
perfect forms. We were form-builders. Apart from this,
our "work" was to maintain and keep active all rhythms
less than our own, yet of our kind. I speak of my own
kind alone. We had no desire to be known outside our
kind. We worked and moved and built up swiftly, but out
of sight an endless service.
"You are the Powers behind what we call Nature, then ?"
the dear Fillery asked me. "You operate behind growing
things, even behind inanimate things like trees and stones
and flowers. Your big rhythms, as you call them, are our
Laws of Nature. Your own particular department, your
own elements evidently, were heat and air."
I could not answer that. But, as he said it, I saw in his
grey eyes the flash of fire which so few of his Race pos-
sessed ; and I felt vaguely that he was one of the struggling
members who was aware of the big rhythms and who
would be put away in little pieces later by the rest. It
made me pitiful. "Forget your own tiny rhythms," I said,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 97
"and come over to us. But bring your tiny rhythms with
you because they are so exquisitely lovely. We shall in-
crease them."
He did not answer me. His mouth twitched at the
corners, and he had an attack of that irritation which, he
says, is relieved and expressed by laughter. Yet the face
shone.
The laughter, however, was a very quick, full, natural
answer, all the same. It was happy and enthusiastic. I
saw that laughter made his rhythms bigger at once. Then
laughter was probably the means to use. It was a sort of
bridge.
"Your instantaneous comprehension of our things puzzles
me," he said. "You grasp our affairs in all their relations
so swiftly* Yet it is all new to you." His voice and face
made me wish to stroke and help him, he was so dear and
eager. "How do you manage it?" he asked point blank.
"Our things are surely foreign to your nature."
"But they are of children," I told him. "They are small
and so very simple. There are no difficulties. Your lan-
guage is block letters because your self-expression, as you
call it, is so limited. It all comes to me at a glance. I and
my kind can remember a million tiniest details without
effort."
He did not laugh, but his face looked full of questions.
I could not help him further. "A scrap, probably, of what
you've taught us," I heard him mumble, though no further
questions came. "Well," he went on presently, while I lay
and watched the pale fire slip in tiny waves about his eyes,
"remember this : since our alphabet is so easy to you, follow
it, stick to it, do not go outside it. There's a good rule that
will save trouble for others as well as for yourself."
"I remember and I try. But it is not always easy. I get
so cramped and stiff and lifeless with it."
"This sunless, chilly England, of course, cannot feed
you," he said. "The sense of beauty in our Race, too, is
very poor."
98 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Once he suddenly looked up and fixed his eyes on my
face. His manner became very earnest.
"Now, listen to me," he said. "I'm going to read you
something; I want you to tell me what you make of it. It's
private ; that is, I have no right to show it to others, but as
no one would understand it with the exception possibly of
yourself secrecy is not of importance." And his mouth
twitched a little.
He drew a sheaf of papers from an inner pocket, and I
saw they were covered with fine writing. I laughed; this
writing always made me laugh it was so laborious and
slow. The writing I knew best, of course, lay all over and
inside the earth and skies. The privacy also made me laugh,
so strange seemed the idea to me, and so impossible this
idea of secrecy. It was such an admission of ignorance.
"I will understand it quickest by reading it," I said. "I
take in a page at once in your block letters."
But he preferred to read it out himself, so that he could
note the effect upon me, he explained, of definite passages.
He saw that I guessed his purpose, and we laughed together
a moment. "When you tire of listening," he said, "just tell
me and I'll pause." I gave him my hand to hold. "It helps
me to stay here," I explained, and he nodded as he grasped
me in his warm firm clasp.
"It's written by one who may have known you and your
big rhythms, though I can't be sure," he added. "One of
er my patients wrote it, someone who believed she was
in communication with a kind of immense Nature-spirit."
Then he began to read in his clear, windy voice :
"'I sit and weave. I feel strange; as if I had so much
consciousness that words cannot explain it. The failure of
others makes my work more hard, but my own purposes
never fail, I am associated with those who need me. The
universal doors are open to me. I compass Creation.' "
But already I began to hum my songs, though to please
him I kept the music low, and he, dear Fillery, did not bid
me stop, but only tightened his grasp upon my hand. I
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 99
listened with pleasure and satisfaction. Therefore I
hummed.
" 'I am silent, seeking no expression, needing no com-
munication, satisfied with the life that is in me. I do not
even wish to be known about ' "
"That's where your Race," I put in, "is to me as children.
All they do must be shouted about so loud or they think it
has not happened."
" 'I do not wish to be forced to obtrude myself/ " he
went on. " 'There are hosts like me. We do not want that
which does not belong to us. We do not want that
hindrance, that opposition which rouses an undesirable con-
sciousness ; for without that opposition we could never have
known of disobedience. We are formless. The formless
is the real. That cannot die. It is eternal.' "
Again he tightened his grasp, and this time also laid his
eyes a moment on my own, over the top of his paper, so
that I kept my music back with a great effort. For it was
hard not to express myself when my own came calling in
this fashion.
He continued reading aloud. He selected passages now,
instead of oing straight through the pages. The words
helped memory in me ; flashes of what I had forgotten came
back in sheets of colour and waves of music; the phrases
built little spirals, as it were, between two states. Of these
two states, I now divined, he understood one perfectly his
own, and the other mine partially. Yet he had a little of
both, I knew, in himself. With me it was similar, only the
understood state was not the same with us. To the Race, of
course, what he read would have no meaning.
"The Comely One and the four figures," I said, "how they
would turn white and run if they could hear you, showing
their yellow teeth and dim eyes !"
His face remained grave and eager, though I could see
the laughter running about beneath the tight brown skin
as he went on reading his little bits.
' 'We heard nothing of man, and were rarely even con-
100 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
scious of him, although he benefited by our work in all that
sustained and conditioned him. The wise are silent, the
foolish speak, and the children are thus led astray, for
wisdom is not knowledge, it is a realization of the scheme
and of one's own part in it/ "
He took a firmer, broader grip of my hand as he read the
next bit. I felt the tremble of his excitement run into my
wrist and arm. His voice deepened and shook. It was like
a little storm :
" 'Then, suddenly, we heard man's triumphant voice. We
became conscious of him as an evolving entity. Our Work
had told. We had built his form and processes so faith-
fully. We knew that when he reached his height we must
be submissive to his will/ "
A gust of memory flashed by me as I heard. Those small
but perfect, exquisite, lovely rhythms !
"Who called me here? Whose voice reached after me,
bringing me into this undesirable consciousness?" I cried
aloud, as the memory went tearing by, then vanished before
I could recover it. At the same time Fillery let go my hand,
and the little bridge was snapped. I felt what he called
pain. It passed at once. I found his hand again, but the
bridge was not rebuilt. How white his skin had grown, I
noticed, as I looked up at his face. But the eyes shone
grandly. "I shall find the way," I said. "We shall go back
together to our eternal home."
He went on reading as though I had not interrupted, but
I found it less easy to listen now.
I realized then that he was gone. He had left the room,
though I had not seen him go. I had been away.
It was some days ago that this occurred. It was to-day,
a few hours ago, that I seized the Comely One and tried to
comfort her, poor hungry member of this little Race.
But both occurrences help us help dear Fillery and my-
self to understand how difficult it is to answer his questions
and tell him exactly what he wants to know.
"How long, O Lord, how long!" I hear his yearning
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 101
cry. "Yet other beings cannot help us; they can only tell
us what their own part is."
After the door had clicked I knew release for a bit re-
lease from a state I partially understood and so found irk-
some, into another where I felt at home and so found
pleasurable. In the big rhythms my nature expressed itself
apparently. I rose, seeking my lost companions. They
the Devonham and his busy little figures called it sleep.
It may be "sleep." But I find there what I seek yet have
forgotten, and that with me were dear Fillery and another
a Comely One whom he brings as though we belong
together and have a common origin. But this other Comely
One who is it?
CHAPTER X
ABOUT a week after the arrival of LeVallon in London,
Dr. Fillery came out of the Home one morning early,
upon some uninteresting private business. He had left
"LeVallon" happy with his books and garden, Devonham
was with him to answer questions or direct his energies;
the other "cases" in the establishment were moving nicely
towards a cure.
The November air was clear and almost bright; no
personal worries troubled him. His mind felt free and
light.
It was one of those mornings when Nature slips, very
close and sweet, into the heart, so close and sweet that the
mind wonders why people quarrel and disagree, when it
is so easy to forgive, and the planet seems but a big, lovely,
happy garden, evil an impossible nightmare, and personal
needs few and simple.
He walked by cross roads towards Primrose Hill, enter-
ing Regent's Park near the Zoo. An early white frost was
rapidly melting in the sun. The sky showed a faint tinge
of blue. He saw floating sea-gulls. These, and a faint
breeze that stirred the yellowing last leaves of autumn, gave
his heart a sudden lift.
And this lift was in the direction of a forbidden corner.
He was aware of some exquisite dawn-wind far away
stirring a million flowers, dew sparkled, streams splashed
and murmured. A valley gleamed and vanished, yet left
across his mind its shining trail. . . . For this lift of his
heart made him soar into a region where it was only too
easy to override temptation. Fillery, however, though his
invisible being soared, kept both visible feet firmly on
102
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 103
the ground. The surface was slippery, being melted by
the sun, but frost kept the earth hard and frozen under-
neath. His balance never was in danger. He remained
detached and a spectator.
She walked beside him nevertheless, a figure of purity
and radiance, perfumed, soft, delicious. She was so
ignorant of life. That was her wonder partly; for beauty
was her accident and, while admirable, was not a deter-
mining factor. Life, in its cruder sense, she did not know,
though moving through the thick of it. It neither touched
nor soiled her ; she brushed its dirt and dust aside as though
a non-conducting atmosphere surrounded her. Her emo-
tions, deep and searching, had remained untorn. A quality
of pristine innocence belonged to her, as though, in the
noisy clamour of ambitious civilized life, she remained still
aware of Eden. Her grace, her loveliness, her simplicity
moved by his side as naturally, it seemed to him, as air
or perfume.
"Iraida," he murmured to himself, with a smile of joy.
"Nayan Khilkoff. All the men worship and adore you,
yet respect you too. They cannot touch you. You remain
aloof, unstained." And, remembering LeVallon's remarks
in cinema and theatre, he could have sung at this mere
thought of her.
"Untouched by coarseness, something unearthly about
your loveliness of soul, a baby, a saint, and to all the men
in Khilkoff's Studio, a mother. Where do you really come
from? Whence do you derive? Your lovely soul can have
no dealings with our common flesh. How many young
fellows have you saved already, how many floundering
characters redeemed! They crave your earthly, physical
love. Instead you surprise and disappoint and shock them
into safety again by giving to them Love. ... !"
And, as he half repeated his vivid thoughts aloud, he
suddenly saw her coming towards him from the ornamental
water, and instantly, wondering what he should say to her,
his mind contracted. The thing in him that sang went
104 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
backward into silence. He put a brake upon himself. But
he watched her coming nearer, wondering what brought
her so luckily into Regent's Park, and all the way from
Chelsea, at such an hour. She moved so lightly, sweetly;
she was so intangible and lovely. He feared her eyes, her
voice.
They drew nearer. From looking to right and left, he
raised his head. She was close, quite close, a hundred
yards away. That walk, that swing, that poise of head
and neck he could not mistake anywhere. His whole being
glowed, thrilled, and yet contracted as in pain.
A sentence about the weather, about her own, her father's,
health, about his calling to see them shortly, rose to his
lips. He turned his eyes away, then again looked up. They
were now not twenty yards apart; in another moment he
would have raised his hat, when, with a sensation of cold
disappointment in him, she went past in totally irresponsive
silence. It was a stranger a shop girl, a charwoman, a
bus-conductor's wife anybody but she whom he had
thought.
How could he have been so utterly mistaken ? It amazed
him. It was, indeed, months since they had met, yet his
knowledge of her appearance was so accurate and detailed
that such an error seemed incredible. He had experienced,
besides, the actual thrill.
The phenomenon, however, was not new to him. Often
had he experienced it, much as others have. He knew,
from this, that she was somewhere near, coming deliciously,
deliberately towards him, moving every minute firmly
nearer, from a point in great London town which she had
left just at the precise moment which would time her
crossing his own path later. They would meet presently,
if not now. Fate had arranged all details, and something
in him was aware of it before it happened.
The phenomenon, as a matter of fact, was repeated twice
again in the next half-hour : he saw her on both occasions
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 105
beyond the possibility of question coming towards him,
yet each time it was a complete stranger masquerading in
her guise.
It meant, he knew, that their two minds hearts, too, he
wondered, with a sense of secret happiness, enjoyed in-
tensely then instantly suppressed were wirelessing to one
another across the vast city, and that both transmitter and
receiver, their physical bodies, would meet shortly round
the corner, or along the crowded street. Strong currents
of desiring thought, he knew, he hoped, he wondered, were
trying to shape the crude world nearer to the heart's desire,
causing the various intervening passers-by to assume the
desirable form and outline in advance.
He reflected, following the habit of his eager mind; this
wireless discovery, after all, was the discovery of a universal
principle in Nature. It was common to all forms of life,
a faint beginning of that advance towards marvellous inter-
communicating, semi-telepathic brotherhood he had always
hoped for, believed in. ... Even plants, he remembered,
according to Bose. . . .
Then, suddenly, half-way down Baker Street he found
her close beside him.
She was dressed so becomingly, so naturally, that no
particular detail caught his eye, although she wore more
colour than was usual in the dull climate known to English
people. There was a touch of fur and there were flowers,
but these were part of her appearance as a whole, and the
hat was so exactly right, though it was here that English-
women generally went wrong, that he could not remember
afterwards what it was like. It was as suitable as natural
hair. It looked as if she had grown it. The shining eyes
were what he chiefly noticed. They seemed to increase the
pale sunlight in the dingy street.
She was so close that he caught her perfume almost be-
fore he recognized her, and a sense of happiness invaded
his whole being instantly, as he took the slender hand
106 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
emerging from a muff and held it for a moment. The
casual sentences he had half prepared fled like a flock of
birds surprised. Their eyes met. . . . And instantly the
sun rose over a far Khaketian valley; he was aware of
joy, of peace, of deep contentment, London obliterated, the
entire world elsewhere. He knew the thrill, the ecstasy of
some long- forgotten dawn. . . .
But in that brief second while he held her hand and
gazed into her eyes, there flashed before him a sudden
apparition. With lightning rapidity this picture darted past
between them, paused for the tiniest fraction of a second,
and was gone again. So swiftly the figure shot across that
the very glance he gave her was intercepted, its angle
changed, its meaning altered. He started involuntarily, for
he knew that vision, the bright rushing messenger, someone
who brought glad tidings. And this time he recognized it
it was the figure of "N. H."
The outward start, the slight wavering of the eyelids,
both were noticed, though not understood, much less inter-
preted by the young woman facing him.
"You are as much surprised as I am," he heard the
pleasant, low-pitched voice before his face. "I thought you
were abroad. Father and I came back from Sark only
yesterday."
"I haven't left town," he replied. "It was Devonham
went to Switzerland."
He was thinking of her pleasant voice, and wondering
how a mere voice could soothe and bless and comfort in
this way. The picture of the flashing figure, too, pre-
occupied him. His various mind was ever busy with several
trains of thought at once, though all correlated. Why, he
was wondering, should that picture of "N. H." leave a sense
of chill upon his heart r Why had the first radiance of this
meeting thus already dimmed a little? Her nearness, too,
confused him as of old, making his manner a trifle brusque
and not quite natural, until he found his centre of control
again. He looked quickly up and down the street, moved
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 107
aside to let some people pass, then turned to the girl again.
"Your holiday has done you good, Iraida," he said quietly ;
"I hope your father enjoyed it too."
"We both enjoyed ourselves," she answered, watching
him, something of a protective air about her. "I wish you
had been with us, for that would have made it perfect. I
was thinking that only this morning as I walked across
Hyde Park."
"How nice of you ! I believe I, too, was thinking of
you both, as I walked through Regent's Park." He smiled
for the first time.
"It's very odd," she went on, "though you can explain
it probably," she added, with a smile that met his own,
increasing it, "or, at any rate, Dr. Devonham could but
I've seen you several times this morning already in the
last half -hour. I've seen you in other people in the street,
I mean. Yet I wasn't thinking of you at the actual moment,
it's two months since we've met, and I imagined you were
abroad."
"Odd, yes," he said, half shyly, half curtly. "It's an
experience many have, I believe."
She gazed up at him. "It's very natural, I think, when
people like each other, Edward, and are in sympathy."
"Yet it happens with people who don't like each other
too," he objected, and at the same moment was vexed that
he had used the words.
Iraida Khilkoff laughed. He had the feeling that she
read his thoughts as easily as if they were printed in red
letters on his grey felt hat.
"There must be some bond between them, though," she
remarked, "an emotion, I mean, whatever it may be even
hatred."
"Probably, Nayan," he agreed. "It's you now, not Devon-
ham, that wants to explain things. I think I must take
you into the Firm, you could take charge of the female
patients with great success."
Whereupon she looked up at him with such a grave
108 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
mothering expression that he was aware of her secret
power, her central source of strength in dealing with men.
Her innocence and truth were an atmosphere about her,
protecting her as naturally and neatly as the clothes upon
her body. She believed in men. He felt like a child beside
her.
"I'm in the Firm already," she said, "for you made me
a partner years ago when I was so high," and her small
gloved hand indicated the stature of a little girl. "You
taught me first."
He remembered the bleak northern town where fifteen
years ago he had known her father as a patient for some
minor ailment, and the friendship that grew out of the
relationship. He remembered the child of nine or ten who
sat on his knee and repeated to him the Russian fairy tales
her mother told her; he recalled the charm, the wonder,
the extraordinary power of belief. Her words brought
back again that flowered Caucasian valley in the sunlight
and this, again, flashed upon the screen the strange bright
figure that had already once intercepted their glance, as
though it somehow came between them. . . .
"You have one advantage over me," he rejoined presently,
"for in my Clinique the people know that they need treat-
ment, whereas in the Studio you catch your patients
unawares. They do not know they're ill. You heal them
without their being aware that they need healing."
"Yet some of our habitues have found their way later
to your consulting-room," she reminded him.
"Merely to finish what you had first begun a sort of
convalescence. You work in the big, raw world, I in a
mere specialized corner of it."
He turned away, lest the power in her eyes overcome
him. The traffic thundered past, the people crowded,
jostling them. He could have stood there talking to her
all day long, the London street forgotten or full of flowers
and Eden's trees and rippling summer streams. The
pale sunlight caught her face beside him and made it
shine. .
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 109
He longed to take her in his arms and fly through the
dawn for ever, for his clean mind saw her without clothing,
her hair loose in the wind, her white shape fleeing from
him, yet beckoning across a gleaming shoulder that he must
overtake and capture her. . . .
"I'm on my way to St. Dunstan's," he heard the musical
voice. "A friend of father's. . . . Come with me, will
you?" And with her muff she touched his arm, trying
to make him turn her way. But just as he felt the touch
he saw the bright figure again. Swifter than himself and
far more powerful, it leaped dancing past and carried her
away before his very eyes. She waved her hand, her eyes
faded like stars into the distance of some unearthly spring
and she was gone. A pang of peculiar anguish seized
him, as the mental picture flashed with the speed of light
and vanished. For the figure seemed of elemental power,
taking its own with perfect ease. . . .
He shook his head. "I'll come to see you to-morrow
instead," he told her. "I'll come to the Studio in the after-
noon, if you'll both be in. I'd like to bring a friend with
me, if I may."
"Good-bye then." She took his hand and kept it. "I
shall expect you to tell me all about this friend. I knew
you had something on your mind, for your thoughts have
been elsewhere all the time."
"Julian LeVallon," he replied quickly. "He's staying
with me indefinitely." His face grew sjiern a moment
about the mouth. "I think he may need you," "he added
with abrupt significance.
"Julian LeVallon," she repeated, the name sounding very
musical the way her slightly foreign accent touched it.
"And what nationality may that be?"
Dr. Fillery hesitated. "His parents, Nayan, I believe,
were English," he said. "He has lived all his life in the
Jura Mountains, alone with an old scholar, poet and
geologist, who brought him up. Of our modern life he
knows little. I think you may " He broke off. "His
mother died when he was born," he concluded.
110 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"And of women he knows nothing," she replied, under-
standingly, "so that he will probably fall in love with the
first he sees with Nayan."
"I hope so, Nayan, and he will be safe with you."
She watched her companion's face for a minute or two
with her clear searching eyes. She smiled. But his own
face wore a mask now; no figure this time flashed between
their deep understanding gaze.
"A woman, you think, can teach and help him more
than a man," she said, without lowering her eyes.
"Probably perhaps, at any rate. The material, I must
warn you at once, is new and strange, I want him to meet
you."
"Then I am in the Firm," was all she answered, "and
you can't do without me." She let go the hand she had
held all this time, and turned from him, looking once across
her shoulder as he, too, went upon his way.
"About three o'clock we shall expect you and Mr.
Julian LeVallon," she added. "The Prometheans are com-
ing too, as of course you know, but that won't matter.
Father has let the Studio to them."
"The more the merrier," he answered, raised his hat,
and went on at a rapid pace up Baker Street.
But with him up the London street went a flock of
thoughts, hopes, fears and memories that were hard to
disentangle. Lost, forgotten dreams went with him too.
He had known that one day he must be "executed," yet
with his own hands he had just slipped the noose about
his neck. Detachment from life, he realized, keeping aloof
from the emotions that touch one's fellow beings, can only
be, after all, a pose. In his case it was evidently a pose
assumed for safety and self-protection, an artificial attitude
he wore to keep his heart from error. His love, born of
some far unearthly valley, undoubtedly consumed him,
while yet he said it nay. . . .
He had himself suggested bringing together the girl and
"N. H." There had been no need to do this. Yet he had
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 111
deliberately offered it, and she had instantly accepted. Even
while he said the words there was a volcano of emotion
in him, several motives fighting to combine. The fear for
himself, being selfish, he had set aside at once; there was
also the fear for her the odd certainty in him that at last
her woman's nature would be waked; lastly, the fear for
"N. H." himself. And here he clashed with his promise
to Devonham. Behind the simple proposal lay these various
threads of motive, emotion and qualification.
Now, as he hurried along the street, they rushed to and
fro about his mind, each at its own speed and with its own
impetuous strength. It was the last one, however, the
certainty that her mere presence must evoke the "N. H."
personality, banishing the commonplace LeVallon; it was
this that, in the end, perhaps troubled him most. An intuitive
conviction assured him that this was bound to be the result
of their meeting. LeVallon would sink down out of sight ;
"N. H." would emerge triumphant and vital, bringing his
elemental power with him. The girl would summon
him. . . .
"I must tell Paul first," he decided. "I must consult his
judgment. Otherwise I'm breaking my promise. If Paul
is against it, I will send an excuse. . . ."
With this proviso, he dismissed the matter from his mind,
noting only how clearly it revealed his own keen desire
to let LeVallon disappear and "N. H." become active. He
himself yearned for the interest, stimulus and companion-
ship of the strange new being that was "N. H."
The other aspect of the problem he dismissed quickly
too : he would lose Nayan. Yes, but he had never possessed
the right to hold her. He was strong, indifferent, de-
tached. . . . His life in any case was a sacrifice upon the
altar of a mistake with regard to which he had not been
consulted. His whole existence must be passed in worship
before this altar, unles? he was to admit himself a failure.
His ideal possession of the girl, he consoled himself, need
know no change. To watch her womanhood, hitherto
112 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
untouched by any man, to watch this bloom and ripen at
the bidding of another must mean pain. But he faced the
loss. And a curious sense of compensation lay in it some-
where the strange notion that she and he would share
"N. H." in a sense between them. He was already aware
of a deep subtle kinship between the three of them, a kin-
ship hardly of this physical world. And, after all, the
interests of "N. H." must come first. He had chosen his
life, accepted it, at any rate; he must remain true to his
high ideal. This strange being, blown by the winds of
chance into his keeping, must be his first consideration.
"LeVallon" needed no special help, neither from himself,
nor from her, nor from others. "LeVallon" was ordinary
enough, if not commonplace, his only interest being at those
thin places in his being where the submerged personality
of "N. H." peeped through. Paul Devonham, he felt con-
vinced, was wrong in thinking "N. H." to be the transient
manifestation.
It was the reverse that Dr. Fillery believed to be the
truth. He saw in "N. H." almost a new type of being
altogether. In that physical body warred two personalities
certainly, but "N. H." was the important one, and Le-
Vallon merely the transient outer one, masquerading on
the surface merely, a kind of automatic and mechanical
personality, gleaned, picked up, trained and educated, as
n were, by the few years spent among the human herd.
And this "N. H." needed help, the best, the wisest pos-
sible. Both male and female help "N. H." demanded.
He, Edward Fillery, could supply the former, but the latter
could be furnished only by some woman in whom innocence,
truth and a natural mother-love the three deepest feminine
qualities were happily combined. Nayan possessed them
all. "N. H.," the strange bright messenger, bringing per-
haps glad tidings into life, had need of her.
And Fillery, as his thoughts ran down these sad and
happy paths of that lost valley in his blood, realized the
meaning of the flashing intuition that had pained yet
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 113
gladdened him half an hour before with its convincing
symbolic picture.
This private Eden secreted in his depths he revealed
to no one, though Paul, his intimate friend and keen
assistant, divined its general neighbourhood and geog-
raphy to some extent. It was the girl who invariably
opened its ivory gates for him. They had but to meet
and talk a moment, when, with a sudden drift of wonder,
beauty, wildness, this Khaketian inheritance rose before
him. Its sunny brilliance, its flowers, its perfumes se-
duced and caught him away. The unearthly mood stole
over him. Thought took wings of imagination and soared
beyond the planet. He foresaw, easily, the effect she
would produce upon "LeVallon." . . .
He came back to earth again at the door of the Home,
smiling, as so often before, at these brief wanderings in
his secret Eden, yet perfectly able to pigeon-hole the
experience, each detail explained, labelled, docketed, and
therefore harmless. . . .
He found Devonham in the study and at once told
him of his suggestion and its possible results, and his
assistant, resting before lunch after a long morning's
work, looked up at him with his quick, observant air.
Noticing the light in the eyes, the softer expression about
the mouth, the general appearance of a strong and recent
stimulus, he easily divined their origin, and showed his
pleasure in his face. He longed for his old friend to be
humanized and steadied by some deep romance. There
was a curious new watchful attitude also about him,
though cleverly concealed.
"I'm glad the Khilkoffs are back in town," he said
easily. "As for LeVallon he's been quiet and uninter-
esting all the morning. He needs the human touch, as
I already said, and the Studio atmosphere, especially if
the Prometheans are to be there, seems the very thing."
"And Nayan ?"
'Her influence is good for any man, young or old, and
114 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
if LeVallon worships at her shrine like the rest of 'em,
so much the better. You remember my Notes. Nothing
will help towards his finding his real self quicker than
an abandoned passion unreturned."
"Unreturned?"
"You can't think she will give to LeVallon what so
many ?"
"But may she not," the other interrupted, "stimulate
'N. H.' rather than LeVallon?"
Devonham was surprised he had quickly divined the
subconscious fear and jealousy. For this detached, im-
personal attitude he was not prepared. Only the keenest
observer could have noticed the sharp, anxious watchful-
ness he hid so well.
"Edward, there's only one thing I feel we you rather
have to be careful about. And the girl has nothing
to do with that. In your blood, remember, lies an un-
earthly spiritual vagrancy which you must not, dare not,
communicate to him, if you ever hope to see him cured."
Devonham regarded him keenly as he said it. He
was as earnest as his chief, but the difference between
the two men was fundamental, probably unbridgeable as
well. The affection, trust, respect each felt for the other
was sincere. Devonham, however, having never known
a thought, a feeling, much less an actual experience, out-
side the normal gamut of humanity, regarded all such as
pathogenic. Fillery, who had tasted the amazing, dan-
gerous sweetness of such experiences, in his own being,
had another standard.
"You must not exaggerate," observed Fillery, slowly.
"Your phrase, though, is good. 'Spiritual vagrancy' is
an apt description, I admit. Yet to the 'spiritual,' if it
exists, the whole universe lies open, remember, too."
They laughed together. Then, suddenly, Devonham
rose, and a new inexpressible uneasiness was in his face.
He thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets, turned
his eyes hard upon the floor, stood with his legs apart.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 115
Abruptly turning, he came a full step closer. "Edward,"
he said, furious with himself, and yet fiercely determined
to be honest, "I may as well tell you frankly though
explanation lies beyond me there's something in this
this case I don't quite like." Behind his lowered eyelids
his observation never failed.
Quick as a flash, his companion took him up. "For
yourself, for others, or for himself?" he asked, while a
secret touch of joy ran through him.
"For myself perhaps," was the immediate rejoinder.
"It's intolerable. It's the panic sense he touches in me.
I admit it frankly. I've had once or twice the desire
to turn and run. But what I mean is we've got to be
uncommonly careful with him," he ended lamely.
"LeVallon you refer to? Or 'N. H.'?"
"'N. H/"
"The panic sense," repeated Fillery to himself more
than to his friend. "The old, old thing. I understand."
"Also," Devonham went on presently, "I must tell
you that since he came here there's been a change in
every patient in the building without exception." He
looked over his shoulder as though he heard a sound.
He listened certainly, but his mind was sharply centred
on his friend.
"For the better, yes," said Fillery at once. "Increased
vitality, I've noticed too."
"Precisely," whispered the other, still listening.
There came a pause between them.
"And when we have found the real, the central self,"
pursued Fillery presently. "When we have found the
essential being what is it?"
"Exactly," replied Devonham with extraordinary
emphasis. "What is it?" But even then he did not look
up to meet the other's glance.
CHAPTER XI
THE meeting with Dr. Fillery and his friends, the
Khilkoffs, father and daughter, had, for one reason
or another, to be postponed for a week, during which brief
time even, no single day wasted, LeVallon's education
proceeded rapidly. He was exceedingly quick to learn
the usages of civilized society in a big city, adapting
himself with an ease born surely of quick intelligence to
the requirements and conventions of ordinary life.
In his perception of the rights of others, particularly,
he showed a natural aptitude; he had good manners,
that is, instinctively ; in certain houses where Fillery took
him purposely, he behaved with a courtesy and tact that
belong usually to what England calls a gentleman. Ex-
cept to Fillery and Devonham, he talked little, but was
an excellent and sympathetic listener, a quality that
helped him to make his way. With Mrs. Soames, the
stern and even forbidding matron, he made such head-
way, that it was noticed with a surprise, including
laughter. He might have been her adopted son.
"She's got a new pet," said Devonham, with a laugh.
"Mason taught him well. His aptitude for natural
history is obvious; after a few years' study he'll make a
name for himself. The 'N. H.' side will disappear now
more and more, unless you stimulate it for your own
ends " He broke off, speaking lightly still, but with
a carelessness some might have guessed assumed.
"You forget," put in his Chief, "I promised."
Devonham looked at him shrewdly. "I doubt," he
said, "whether you can help yourself, Edward," the ex-
pression in his eyes for a moment almost severe,
116
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 117
Fillery remained thoughtful, making no immediate
reply.
"We must remember," he said presently, "that he's
now in the quiescent state. Nothing has again occurred
to bring 'N. H.' uppermost again."
Devonham turned upon his friend. "I see no reason
why 'N. H.' " he spoke with emphasis "should ever
get uppermost again. In my opinion we can make this
quiescent state LeVallon the permanent one."
"We can't keep him in a cage like Mrs. Soames's
mice and parrot. Are you, for instance, against my
taking him to the Studio? Do you think it's a mistake
to let him meet the Prometheans?"
"That's just where Mason went wrong," returned
Devonham. "He kept him in a cage. The boy met only
a few peasants, trees, plants, animals and birds. The sun,
making him feel happy, became his deity. The rain he
hated. The wind inspired and invigorated him. If we
now introduce the human element wisely, I see no dan-
ger. If he can stand the Khi the Studio and the Pro-
metheans, he can stand anything. He may be considered
cured."
The door opened and a tall, radiant figure with bright
eyes and untidy shining hair came into the room, carrying
an open book.
"Mrs. Soames says I've nothing to do with stars,"
said a deep musical voice, "and that I had better stick to
animals and plants. She says that star-gazing never
was good for anyone except astronomers who warn us
about tides, eclipses and dangerous comets."
He held out the big book, open at an enlarged stellar
photograph. "What, please, is a galaxy, a star that is
suddenly brilliant, then disappears in a few weeks, and a
nebula?"
Before either of the astonished men could answer,
LeVallon turned to Devonham, his face wearing the
gravity and intense curiosity of a child. "And, please,
118 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
are you the only sort of being in the universe? Mrs.
Soames says that the earth is the only inhabited place.
Aren't there other beings besides you anywhere? The
Earth is such a little planet, and the solar system, accord-
ing to this book, is one of the smallest too."
"My dear fellow," Devonham said gently, "do not
bother your head with useless speculations. Our only
valuable field of study is this planet, for it is all we know
or ever can know. Whether the universe holds other
beings or not, can be of no importance to us at present."
LeVallon stared fixedly at him, saying nothing. Some-
thing of his natural radiance dimmed a little. "Then what
are all these things that I remember I've forgotten?" he
asked, his blue eyes troubled.
"It will take you all your lifetime to understand beings
like me, and like yourself and like Dr. Fillery. Don't
waste time speculating about possible inhabitants in
other stars."
He spoke good-humouredly, but firmly, as one who
laid down certain definite lines to be followed, while Dr.
Fillery, watching, made no audible comment. Once long
ago he had asked his own father a somewhat similar
question.
"But I shall so soon get to the end of you," replied
LeVallon, a disappointed expression on his face. "I may
speculate then?" he asked.
"When you get to the end of me and of yourself and
of Dr. Fillery yes, then you may speculate to your
heart's content," said Devonham in a kindly tone. "But
it will take you longer than you think perhaps. Besides,
there are women, too, remember. You will find them
more complicated still."
A curious look stole into the other's eager eyes. He
turned suddenly towards the older man who had his
confidence so completely. There was in the movement,
in the incipient gesture that he made with his arms, his
hands, almost with his head and face as well, something
of appeal that set the doctor's nerves alert. And the
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 119
change of voice it was lower now and more musical
than before increased the nameless message that flashed
to his brain and heart. There was a hint of song, of
chanting almost, in the tone. There was music in him.
For the voice, Fillery realized suddenly, brought in the
over-tones, somewhat in the way good teachers of sing-
ing and voice production know. There was the depth,
sonority, singing quality which means that the "har-
monics" are made audible, as with a violin played in
perfect tune. The sound seemed produced not by the
vocal cords alone, but by the entire being, so to speak.
Yet, "LeVallon's" voice had not this rich power, he
noticed. Its appearance was a sign that "N. H." was
stirring into activity and utterance.
"Women, yes," the young man repeated to himself.
"Women bring back something. Their eyes make me
remember " he turned abruptly to the open book upon
the doctor's knee. "It's something to do with stars,
these memories," he went on eagerly, the voice resonant.
"Stars, women, memories . . . where are they all gone
to . . . ? Why have I lost . . . ? What is it that . . . ?"
It seemed as if a veil passed from his face, a thin
transparency that dimmed the shining effect his hair and
eyes and radiant health produced. A far-away expression
followed it.
" 'N. H.' !" Devonham quickly flashed the whispered
warning. And in the same instant, Fillery rose, holding
out the open book.
"Come, LeVallon," he said, putting a hand upon his
shoulder, "we'll go into my room for an hour, and I'll
tell you all about the galaxies and nebulae. You shall
as'- as many questions as you like. Devonham is a very
busy man and has duties to attend to just now."^
He moved across to open the door, and LeVallon, his
face changing more and more, went with him ; the light
in his eyes increased ; he smiled, the far-away expression
passed a little.
"Dr. Devonham is quite right in what he says about
120 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
useless speculations," continued Fillery, as they went out
arm in arm together, "but we can play a bit with thought
and imagination, for all that you and I. 'Let your
thought wander like an insect which is allowed to fly in
the air, but is at the same time confined by a thread.'
Come along, we'll have an hour's play. We'll travel
together among the golden stars, eh?"
"Play!" exclaimed the youth, looking up with flash-
ing eyes. "Ah! in the Spring we play! Our work with
sap, roots, crystals, fire, all finished out of sight, so that
their results followed of their own accord." He was
talking at great speed in a low voice, a deep, rolling
voice, and half to himself. "Spring is our holiday, the
forms made perfect and ready for the power to rush
through, and we rush with it, playing everywhere "
"Spring is the wine of life, yes," put in Fillery, caught
away momentarily by something behind the words he
listened to, as though a rhythm swept him. "Creative
life racing up and flooding into every form and body
everywhere. It brings wonder, joy play, as you call it."
"We we build the way " The youth broke off
abruptly as they reached the study door. Something
flowed down and back in him, emptying face and manner
of a mood which had striven for utterance, then passed.
He returned to the previous talk about the stars again:
"Who attends to them? Who looks after them?" he
inquired, a deep, peculiar interest in his manner, his eyes
turning a little darker.
"What we call the laws of Nature," was the reply,
"which are, after all, merely our 'descriptive formulae
summing up certain regularities of recurrence/ the laws
under which they were first set alight and then sent
whirling into space. Under these same laws they will
all eventually burn out and come to rest. They will be
dead."
"Dead," repeated the other, as though he did not
understand. "They are the children of the laws," he
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 121
stated, rather than asked. "Are the laws kind and faith-
ful? They never tire?"
Fillery explained with one-half of his nature, and still
as to a child. The other half of him lay under firm
restraint according to his promise. He outlined in gen-
eral terms man's knowledge of the stars. "The laws
never tire," he said.
"But the stars end! They burn out, stop, arid die!
You said so."
The other replied with something judicious and
cautious about time and its immense duration. But he
was startled.
"And those who attend to the laws," came then the
words that startled him, "who keeps them working so
that they do not tire ?"
It was something in the tone of voice perhaps that,
once again, produced in his listener the extraordinary
sudden feeling that Humanity was, after all, but an in-
significant, a microscopic detail in the Universe; that it
was, say, a mere ant-heap in the colossal jungle crowded
with other minuter as well as immenser life of every sort
and kind, and, moreover, that "N. H." was aware of
this "other life," or at least of some vast section of it,
and had been, if he were not still, associated with it.
The two letters by which he was designated acquired a
deeper meaning than before.
A rich glow came into the young face, and into the
eyes, growing ever darker, a look of burning; the skin
had the effect of radiating; the breathing became of a
sudden deep and rhythmical. The whole figure seemed
to grow larger, expanding as though it extended already
and half filled the room. Into the atmosphere about it
poured, as though heat and light rushed through it, a
strange effect of power.
"You'd like to visit them, perhaps wouldn't you?"
asked Fillery gently.
"I feel " began the other, then stopped short.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"You feel it would interest you," the doctor helped
then saw his mistake.
"I feel," repeated the youth. The sentence was com-
plete. "I am there."
"Ah ! when you feel you're there, you are there ?"
The other nodded.
He leaned forward. "/ know," he whispered as with
sudden joy. "You help me to remember, Fillery." The
voice, though whispering, was strong; it vibrated full of
over-tones and under-tones. The sound of the "F" was
like a wind in branches. "You wonderful, you know too !
It is the same with flowers, with everything. We build
with wind and fire." He stopped, rubbing a hand across
his forehead a moment. "Wind and fire," he went on,
but this time to himself, "my splendid mighty ones. . . ."
Dropping his hand, he flashed an amazing look of en-
thusiasm and power into his companion's face. The
look held in concentrated form something of the power
that seemed pulsing and throbbing in his atmosphere.
"Help me to remember, dear Fillery," his voice rang out
aloud like singing. "Remember with me why we both
are here. When we remember we can go back where
we belong."
The glow went from his face and eyes as though an
inner lamp had been suddenly extinguished. The power
left both voice and atmosphere. He sank back in his
chair, his great sensitive hands spread over the table
where the star charts lay, as through the. open window
came the crash and clatter of an aeroplane tearing, like
some violent, monstrous insect, through the sunlight.
A look of pain came into his eyes. "It goes again.
I've lost it."
"We were talking about the stars and the laws of
Nature," said Fillery quickly, though his voice was shak-
ing, "when that noisy flying-machine disturbed us." He
leaned over, taking his companion's hand. His heart was
beating. He smelt the open spaces. The blood ran wildly
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 123
in his veins. It was with the utmost difficulty he
found simple, common words to use. "You must not
ask too much at once. We will learn slowly there is
so much we have to learn together."
LeVallon's smile was beautiful, but it was the smile
of "LeVallon" again only.
"Thank you, dear Fillery," he replied, and the talk
continued as between a tutor and his backward pupil.
. . . But for some time afterwards the "tutor's" mind and
heart, while attending to LeVallon now, went travelling,
it seemed, with "N. H." There was this strange division
in his being . . . for "N. H." appealed with power to a
part of him, perhaps the greatest, that had never yet
found expression, much less satisfaction.
Many a talk together of this kind, with occasional
semi-irruptions of "N. H.," he had already enjoyed with
his new patient, and LeVallon was by now fairly well
instructed in the general histo'ry of our little world,
briefly but picturesquely given. Evolution had been out-
lined and explained, the rise of man sketched vividly, the
great war, and the planet's present state of chaos de-
scribed in a way that furnished a clear enough synopsis
of where humanity now stood. LeVallon was able to
hold his own in conversation with others; he might pass
for a simple-minded but not ill-informed young man, and
both Paul Devonham and Edward Fillery, though each
for different reasons, were, therefore, well satisfied with
the young human being entrusted to their care, a human
being to be eventually discharged from the Home, healed
and cured of extravagances, made harmonious with him-
self, able to make his own way in the world alone. To
Devonham it appeared already certain that, withm a rea-
sonable time, LeVallon would find himself happily at
home among his fellow kind, a normal, even a gifted
young man with a future before him. "N. H." would
disappear and be forgotten, absorbed back into the
parent Self. To his colleague, on the other hand, another
124 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
vision of his future opened. Sooner or later it was
LeVallon that would disappear and "N. H." remain in
full control, a strange, possibly a new type of being, not
alone marvellously gifted, but who might even throw
light upon a vista of research and knowledge hitherto
unknown to humanity, and with benefits for the Race as
yet beyond the reach of any wildest prophecy.
Both men, therefore, went gladly with him to the
Khilkoff Studio that early November afternoon, anxious
to observe him, his conduct, attitude, among the curious
set of people to be found there on the Prometheans'
Society day, and to note any reactions he might show
in such a milieu. Each felt fully justified in doing so,
though they would have kept an ordinary "hysterical"
patient safely from the place. LeVallon, however, be-
trayed no trace of hysteria in any meaning of the word,
big or little ; he was stable as a navvy, betraying no un-
desirable reaction to the various well-known danger
points. The visit might be something of an experiment
perhaps, but an experiment, a test, they were justified
in taking. Yet Devonham on no account would have
allowed his chief to go alone. He had insisted on accom-
panying ^hem.
And to both men, as they went towards Chelsea, their
quiet companion with them, came the feeling that the
visit might possibly prove one of them right, the other
wrong. Fillery expected that Nayan Khilkoff alone, to
say nothing of the effect of the other queer folk who
might be present, must surely evoke the "N. H." person-
ality now lying quiescent and inactive below the thresh-
old of LeVallon. The charm and beauty of the girl he
had never known to fail with any male, for she Rad that
in her which was bound to stimulate the highest in the
opposite sex. The excitement of the wild, questing, pic-
turesque, if unbalanced, minds who would fill the place,
must also, though in quite another way, affect the real
self of anyone who came in contact with their fantastic
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 125
and imaginative atmosphere. Attraction or repulsion
must certainly be felt. He expected at any rate a vital
clue.
"Ivan Khilkoff," he told LeVallon, as they went along
in the car, "is a Russian, a painter and sculptor of talent,
a good-hearted and silent sort of old fellow, who has
remained very poor because he refuses to advertise him-
self or commercialize his art, and because his work is
not the kind of thing the English buy. His daughter,
Nayan, teaches the piano and Russian. She is beautiful
and sweet and pure, but of an independent and rather
impersonal character. She has never fallen in love, for
instance, though most men fall in love with her. I hope
you may like and understand each other."
"Thank you," said LeVallon, listening attentively, but
with no great interest apparently. "I will try very much
to like her and her father too."
"The Studio is a very big one, it is really two studios
knocked into one, their living rooms opening out of it.
One half of the place, being so large, they sometimes let
out for meetings, dances and that sort of thing, earning
a little money in that way. It is rented this evening by a
Society called the Prometheans a group of people whose
inquisitive temperaments lead them to believe, or half
believe "
"To imagine, if not deliberately to manufacture," put
in Devonham.
" to imagine, let us call it," continued the other with
a twinkle, "that there are other worlds, other powers, other
states of consciousness and knowledge open to them out-
side and beyond the present ones we are familiar with."
"They know these?" asked LeVallon, looking up with
signs of interest. "They have experienced them?"
"They know and experience," replied Fillery, "accord-
ing to their imaginations and desires, those with a touch
of creative imagination claiming the most definite results,
those without it being merely imitative. They report their
126 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
experiences, that is, but cannot or rarely show tne results
to others. You will hear their talk and judge accordingly.
They are interesting enough in their way. They have, at
any rate, one thing of value that they are open to new
ideas. Such people have existed in every age of the world's
history, but after an upheaval, such as the great war has
been, they become more active and more numerous, because
the nervous system, reacting from a tremendous strain,
produces exaggeration. Any world is better than an un-
comfortable one in revolution, they think. They are, as
a rule, sincere and honest folk. They add a touch of
colour to the commonplace "
"Tuppence coloured," murmured Devonham below his
breath,
"And they believe so much in other worlds to conquer,
other regions, bigger states of consciousness, other powers,"
concluded Fillery, ignoring the interruption, "that they are
half in this world, half in the next. Hence Dr. Devonham's
name, the name by which he sometimes laughs at them of
Half Breeds."
LeVallon's eyes, he saw, were very big; his interest and
attention were excited.
"The;* w iM probably welcome you with open arms," he
added, "if you care to join them. They consider them-
selves pioneers of a larger life. They are not mere
spiritualists oh no ! They are familiar with all the newest
theories, and realize that an alternative hypothesis can ex-
plain all so-called psychic phenomena without dragging
spirits in. It is in exaggerating results they go mostly
wrong."
"Eccentrics," Devonham remarked, "out of the circle,
and hysterical to a man. They accomplish nothing. They
are invariably dreamers, usually of doubtful morals and
honesty, and always unworthy of serious attention. But
they may amuse you for an hour."
"We all find it difficult to believe what we have never
experienced," mentioned Fillery, turning to his colleague
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 127
with a hearty laugh, in which the latter readily joined, for
their skirmishes usually brought in laughter at the end.
Just now, moreover, they were talking with a purpose, and
it was wise and good that LeVallon should listen and take
in what he could hearing both sides. He watched and
listened certainly with open eyes and ears, as he sat be-
tween them on the wide front seat, but saying, as usual,
very little.
The car turned down a narrow lane with slackening speed
and slowed up before a dingy building with faded Virginia
creepers sprawling about stained dirty walls. The neigh-
bourhood was depressing, patched and dishevelled, and
almost bordering on a slum. The November light was
passing into early twilight.
"You," said LeVallon abruptly, turning round and star-
ing at Devonham, "make everything seem unreal to me.
I do not understand you. You know so much. Why is so
little real to you ?"
But Devonham, in the act of getting out of the car, made
no reply, and probably had not heard the words, or, if he
had heard, thought them more suitable for Fillery.
CHAPTER XII
Prometheans were evidently in full attendance;
possibly the rumour had reached them that Dr. Fillery
was coming. No one announced the latter's arrival, there
was no servant visible; the party hung up their hats and
coats in a passage, then walked into the lofty, dim-lit studio
which was already filled with people and the hum of many
voices.
At once, standing in a hesitating group beside the door,
they were observed by everyone in the room. All asked,
it seemed, "Who is this stranger they have brought?"
Fillery caught the curious atmosphere in that first moment,
an instant whiff, as it were, of excitement, interest, some-
thing picturesque, if possibly foolish, fantastic, too, yet
faintly stimulating, breathing along his extremely sensitive
nerves.
He glanced at his companions. Devonham, it struck him,
looked more than ever like a floor-walker come to supervise,
say, a Department where the sales and assistants were not
satisfactory or he laughed inwardly as the simile occurred
to him a free-thinker entering a church whose teaching
he disapproved, even despised, and whose congregation
touched his contemptuous pity. "Who would ever guess,"
thought his friend and colleague, "the sincerity and depth
of knowledge in that insignificant appearance? Paul hides
his value well !" He noticed, in his quick fashion, touched
by humour, the hard challenging eyes, the aquiline nose on
which a pair of pince-nez balanced uneasily, the narrow
shoulders, the poorly fitting clothes. The heart, of course,
remained invisible. Yet suddenly he felt glad that Devon-
ham was with him. "Nothing unstable there," he reflected,
128
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 129
"and stability combined with competence is rare." This
rapid judgment, it occurred to him, was possibly a warning
from his own subconscious being. ... A red flag signalled,
flickered, vanished.
He glanced next at LeVallon, towering above the other.
LeVallon was now well dressed in London clothes that
suited him, though, for that matter, any clothes must have
looked well upon a male figure so virile and upstanding.
His great shoulders, his leanness, covered so beautifully
with muscle, his height, his colouring, his radiant air ; above
all, his strange, big penetrating eyes, marked him as a figure
one would notice anywhere. He stood, somehow, alone,
apart, though the ingredients that contributed to this strange
air of aloofness would be hard to define.
It was chiefly, perhaps, the poise of the great powerful
frame that helped towards this odd setting in isolation and
independence. Motionless, he gazed about him quietly, but
it was the way he stood that singled him out from other
men. Even in his stillness there was grace; neither hands
nor feet, though it was difficult to describe exactly how he
placed them or used them, were separate from this poise
of perfect balance. To put it colloquially, he knew what
to do with his extremities. Self-consciousness, in sight of
this ardent throng, the first he had encountered at close,
intimate quarters, was entirely absent.
This Fillery noticed instantly, but other impressions
followed during the few brief seconds while they waited
by the door; and first, the odd effect of tremendous power
he managed to convey. Nothing could have been less
aggressive than the tentative, questioning, half inquiring,
half wondering attitude in which he stood, waiting to be
introduced to the buzzing throng of humans ; yet there hung
about him like an atmosphere this potential strength, of
confidence, of superiority, even of beauty too, that not only
contributed much to the aloofness already mentioned, but
also contrived to make the others, men and women, in the
crowded room insignificant. Somehow they seemed pale
130 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
and ineffective against a larger grandeur, a scale entirely
beyond their reach.
"Gigantic" was the word that leaped into the mind, but
another perhaps leaped with it "elemental."
Fillery was aware of envy, oddly enough, of pride as
well. His heart warmed more than ever to him. Almost,
he could have then and there recalled his promise given
to Devonham, cancelling it contemptuously with a word of
self-apology for his smallness and his lack of faith. . . .
LeVallon, aware of a sympathetic mind occupied closely
with himself, turned in that moment, and their eyes met
squarely; a smile of deep, inner understanding passed
swiftly between them over Devonham's head and shoulders.
In which moment, exactly, a short, bearded man, detaching
himself from the crowd, came forward and greeted them
with sincere pleasure in his voice and manner. He was
broad-shouldered, lean, his clothes hung loosely; his glance
was keen but kindly. Introductions followed, and KhilkofFs
sharp eye rested for some seconds with unconcealed admira-
tion upon LeVallon, as he held his hand. His discerning
sculptor's glance seemed to appraise his stature and propor-
tions, while he bade him welcome to the Studio. His big
head and short neck, his mane of hair, the width of his
face, with its squat nose and high cheek-bones, the half
ferocious eyes, the heavy jaw and something sprawling
about the mouth, gave him a leonine expression. And
his voice was not unlike a deep-toned growl, for all its
,cordiality.
A stir, meanwhile, ran through the room, more heads
turned in their direction ; they had long ago been observed,;
they were being now examined.
"Nayan," Khilkoff was saying, while he still held Le-
Vallon's hand as though its size and grip contented him,
"had a late Russian lesson. She will be here shortly, and
very glad to make your acquaintance," looking up at Le-
Vallon, as the new-comer. His gruffness and brevity had
something pleasing in them. "To-day the Studio is not
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 131
entirely mine," he explained. "I want you to come when
I'm alone. Some studies I made in Sark this summer may
interest you." He turned to Fillery. "That lonely place
was good for both of us," he said; "it gave me new life
and inspiration, and Nayan benefited immensely too. She
looks more like a nymph than ever."
He shook hands with Devonham, smiling more grimly.
"I'm surprised you, too, have honoured us," he exclaimed
with genuine surprise. "Come to damn them all as usual,
probably! Good! Your common-sense and healthy criti-
cism are needed in these days cool, cleaning winds in an
over-heated conservatory." He broke off abruptly and
looked down at LeVallon's hand he was still holding. He
examined it for a second with care and admiration, then
turned his eye upon the young man's figure. He grunted.
"When I know you better," he said, with a growl of
earnest meaning, "I shall ask a favour, a great favour, of
you. So, beware!"
"Thank you," replied LeVallon, and at the sound of his
voice the sculptor's interest deepened. A gleam shone in
his eye.
"You've begun some work," said Fillery, "and models
are hard to come by, I imagine." His eye never left Le-
Vallon.
Khilkoff chuckled. "Thought-reader!" he exclaimed.
"If Povey heard that, he'd make you join the Society at
once as honorary member or vice-president. Anything to
get you in. Dr. Fillery understands us all too well," he
went on to LeVallon. "In Sark, that lonely island in the
sea, I began four figures four elemental figures of earth,
air, fire and water a group, of course. The air figure,
I've done "
"With Nayan as model," suggested Fillery, smiling.
"One morning, yes, I caught her bathing from a rock,
hair streaming in the wind, no clothes on, white foam from
the big breakers fluttering about her, slim, shining, uncon-
scious and half dancing, fierce sunlight all over her. Ah"
132 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
he broke off "here's Povey coming. I mustn't monopo-
lize you all. Devonham, you know most of 'em. Make
yourselves at home." He turned to LeVallon again, with
a touch of something gentler, almost of respect, thought
Fillery, as he noticed the delicate change of voice and
manner quickly. "Come, Mr. LeVallon," he said courteously,
"I should like to show you the figure as I've done it. We'll
go for a moment into my own private rooms. But it's a
model for fire I'm looking for, as Fillery guessed. You
may be interested." He led him off. LeVallon went with
evident content, and the advance of skirmishes that were
already approaching for introductions was temporarily
defeated.
For the three men standing by the door had formed a
noticeable group, and Khilkoff's presence added to their
value. Dr. Fillery, known and much respected, regarded
with a touch of awe by many, had not come for nothing,
it was doubtless argued; his colleague, moreover, accom-
panied him, and he, too, was known to the Society, though
not much cultivated by its members owing to his down-
right, critical way of talking. They deemed him prejudiced,
unsympathetic. It was the third member of the group,
LeVallon, who had quickly caught all eyes, and the atten-
tion immediately paid to him by their host set the value
of a special and important guest upon him instantly. All
watched him led away by Khilkoff to the private quarters
of the Studio, where none at first presumed to follow them ;
but it was the eyes of the women that remained glued to
the open door where they had disappeared, waiting with
careful interest for their reappearance. In particular Lady
Gleeson, the "pretty Lady Gleeson," watched from the
corner where she sat alone, sipping some refreshment.
Fillery and Devonham, having observed the signs about
them, exchanged a glance ; their charge was safe for the
moment, at any rate ; they felt relieved ; yet it was for the
entry of Nayan, the daughter, that both waited with interest
and impatience, as, meanwhile, the bolder ones among the
crowd came up one by one and captured them.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 133
"Oh, Dr. Fillery, I am glad to see you here. I thought
you were always too busy for unscientific people like us.
Yet, in a way, we're all seekers, are we not? I've been
reading your Physiology book, and I did so want to ask
you about something in it. I wonder if you'd mind."
He shook hands with a young-old woman, wearing bobbed
hair and glasses, and speaking with an intense, respectful,
yet self-apologetic manner.
"You've forgotten me, but I quite understand. You see
so many people. I'm Miss Lance. I sent you my little
magazine, 'Simplicity,' once, and you acknowledged it so
sweetly, though, of course, I understood you had not the
time to write for it." She continued for several minutes,
smiling up at him, her hands clasping and unclasping them-
selves behind a back clothed with some glittering coloured
material that rather fascinated him by its sheen. She kept
raising herself on her toes and sinking back again in a
series of jerky rhythms.
He gave her his delightful smile.
"Oh, Dr. Fillery!" she exclaimed, with pleasure, leading
him to a divan, upon which he let himself down in such a
position that he could observe the door from the street as
well as the door where LeVallon had disappeared. "This
is really too good-natured of you. Your book set me on
fire simply" her eyes wandering to the other door "and
what a wonderful looking person you've brought with
you "
"I fear it's not very easy reading," he interposed patiently.
"To me it was too delightful for words," she rattled on,
pleased by the compliment implied. "I devour all your books
and always review them myself in the magazine. I wouldn't
trust them to anyone else. I simply can't tell you how
physiology stimulates me. Humanity needs imaginative books,
especially just now." She broke off with a deprecatory
smile. "I do what I can," she added, as he made no remark,
"to make them known, though in such a very small way,
I fear." Her interest, however, was divided, the two power-
ful attractions making her quite incoherent. "Your friend,"
134 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
she ventured again, "he must be Eastern perhaps? Or is
that merely sunburn? He looks most unusual."
"Sunburn merely, Miss Lance. You must have a chat
with him later."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, Dr. Fillery. I do so love
unusual people. . . ."
He listened gravely. He was gentle, while she confided
to him her little inner hopes and dreams about the "simple
life." She introduced adjectives she believed would sound
correct, if spoken very quickly, until, between the torrent
of "psychical," "physiological" and once or twice, "psycho-
logical," she became positively incoherent in a final entangle-
ment from which there was no issue but a convulsive ges-
ture. None the less, she was bathed in bliss. She monopo-
lized the great man for a whole ten minutes on a divan
where everybody could see that they talked earnestly,
intimately, perhaps even intellectually, together side by side.
He observed the room, meanwhile, without her noticing
it, scanning the buzzing throng with interest. There was
confusion somewhere, something was lacking, no system
prevailed; he was aware of a general sense of waiting for
a leader. All looked, he knew, for Nayan to appear. With-
out her presence, there was no centre, for, though not a
member of the Society herself, she was the heart always
of their gatherings, without which they straggled somewhat
aimlessly. And "heart," he remembered, with a smile that
Miss Lance took proudly for herself, was the appropriate
word. Nayan mothered them. They were but children,
after all. . . .
"When you talk of a 'New Age,' what exactly do you
mean? I wish you'd define the term for me," Devonham
meanwhile was saying to an interlocutor, not far away,
while with a corner of his eye he watched both Fillery and
the private door. He still stood near the entrance, looking
more than ever like a disapproving floor-walker in a big
department store, and it was with H. Millington Povey
that he talked, the Honorary Secretary of the Society. The
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 135
Secretary had aimed at Fillery, but Miss Lance had been
too quick for him. He was obliged to put up with Devon-
ham as second best, and his temper suffered accordingly.
He was in aggressive mood.
Povey, facing him, was talking with almost violent zeal.
A small, thin, nervous man, on the verge of middle age,
his head prematurely bald, with wildish tufts of patchy hair,
a thin, scraggy neck that he lengthened and shortened be-
tween high hunched shoulders, Povey resembled an eager
vulture. His keen bright eyes, hooked nose, and a habit
of twisting head and neck apart from his body, which
held motionless, increased this likeness to a bird of prey.
Possessed of considerable powers of organization, he kept
the Society together. It was he who insisted upon some
special "psychic gift" as a qualification of membership; an
applicant must prove this gift to a committee of Povey's
choosing, though these proofs were never circulated for
general reading in the Society's Reports. Talkers, dreamers,
faddists were not desired; a member must possess some
definite abnormal power before he could be elected. He
must be clairvoyant or clairaudient, an automatic writer,
trance-painter, medium, ghost-seer, prophet, priest or king.
Members, therefore, stated their special qualification to
each other without false modesty : "I'm a trance medium,"
for instance ; "Oh, really ! I see auras, of course" ; while
others had written automatic poetry, spoken in trance
"inspirational speakers," that is photographed a spirit,
appeared to someone at a distance, or dreamed a prophetic
dream that later had come true. Mediums, spirit-photog-
raphers, and prophetic dreamers were, perhaps, the most
popular qualifications to offer, but there were many who
remembered past lives and not a few could leave their
bodies consciously at will.
Memberships cost two guineas, the hat was occasionally
passed round for special purposes, there was a monthly
dinner in Soho, when members stood up, like saved sinners
at a revivalist meeting, and gave personal testimony of con-
136 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
version or related some new strange incident. The Prome-
theans were full of stolen fire and life.
Among them were ambitious souls who desired to start
a new religion, deeming the Church past hope. Others, like
the water-dowsers and telepathists, were humbler. There
was an Inner Circle which sought to revive the Mysteries,
and gave very private performances of dramatic and sym-
bolic kind, based upon recovered secret knowledge, at the
solstices and equinoxes. New Thought members despised
these, believing nothing connected with the past had value ;
they looked ahead; "live in the present," "do it now" was
their watchword. Astrologers were numerous too. These
cast horoscopes, or, for a small fee, revealed one's secret
name, true colour, lucky number, day of the week and
month, and so forth. One lady had a tame "Elemental."
Students of Magic and Casters of Spells, wearers of talis-
mans and intricate designs in precious or inferior metal,
according to taste and means, were well represented, and
one and all believed, of course, in spirits.
None, however, belonged to any Sect of the day, what-
ever it might be ; they wore no labels ; they were seekers,
questers, inquirers whom no set of rules or dogmas dared
confine within fixed limits. An entirely open mind and no
prejudices, they prided themselves, distinguished them.
"Define it in scientific terms, this New Age I cannot,"
replied Povey in his shrill voice, "for science deals only
with the examination of the known. Yet you only have to
look round you at the world to-day to see its obvious signs.
Humanity is changing, new powers everywhere "
Devonham interrupted unkindly, before the other could
assume he had proved something by merely stating it:
"What are these signs, if I may ask?" he questioned
sharply. "For if you can name them, we can examine them
er scientifically." He used the word with malice, know-
ing it was ever on the Promethean lips.
"There you are, at cross-purposes at once," declared
Povey. "I refer to hints, half-lights, intuitions, signs that
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 137
only the most sensitive among us, those with psychic divina-
tion, with spiritual discernment that only the privileged
and those developed in advance of the Race can know.
And, instantly you produce your microscope, as though I
offered you the muscles of a tadpole to dissect."
They glared at one another. "We shall never get progress
your way," Povey fumed, withdrawing his head and neck
between his shoulders.
"Returning to the Middle Ages, on the other hand," men-
tioned Devonham, "seems like advancing in a circle, doesn't
it?"
"Dr. Devonham," interrupted a pretty, fair-haired girl
with an intense manner, "forgive me for breaking up your
interesting talk, but you come so seldom, you know, and
there's a lady here who is dying to be introduced. She has
just seen crimson flashing in your aura, and she wants to
ask do you mind very much?" She smiled so sweetly
at him, and at Mr. Povey, too, who was said to be engaged
to her, though none believed it, that annoyance was not
possible. "She says she simply must ask you if you were
feeling anger. Anger, you know, produces red or crimson
in one's visible atmosphere," she explained charmingly.
She led him off, forgetting, however, her purpose en route,
since they presently sat down side by side in a quiet corner
and began to enjoy what seemed an interesting tete-a-tete,
while the aura-seeing lady waited impatiently and observed
them, without the aid of clairvoyance, from a distance.
"And your qualifications for membership ?" askeS Devon-
ham. "I wonder if I may ask ?"
"But you'd laugh at me, if I told you," she answered
simply, fingering a silver talisman that hung from her neck,
a six-pointed star with zodiacal signs traced round a rose,
rosa mystica, evidently. "I'm so afraid of doctors."
Devonham shook his head decidedly, asserting vehemently
his interest, whereupon she told him her little private dream
delightfully, without pose or affectation, yet shyly and so
sincerely that he proved his assertion by a genuine interest.
138 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"And does that protect you among your daily troubles?"
he asked, pointing to her little silver talisman. He had
already commented sympathetically upon her account of
saving her new puppies from drowning, having dreamed
the night before that she saw them gasping in a pail of
water, the cruel under-gardener looking on. "Do you wear
it always, or only on special occasions like this?"
"Oh, Miss Milligan made that," she told him, blushing
a little. "She's rather poor. She earns her living by de-
signing "
"Oh!"
"But I don't mean that. She tells you your Sign and
works it in metal for you. I bought one. Mine is Pisces."
She became earnest. "I was born in Pisces, you see."
"And what does Pisces do for you ?" he inquired, remem-
bering the heightened colour. The sincerity of this Rose
Mystica delighted him, and he already anticipated her reply
with interest* Here,, he felt, was the credulous, religious
type in its naked purity, forced to believe in something
marvellous.
"Well, if you wear your Sign next your skin it brings
good luck it makes the things you want happen." The
blush reappeared becomingly. She did not lower her eyes.
"Have your things happened then?"
She hesitated. "Well, I've had an awfully good time
ever since I wore it "
"Proposals?" he asked gently.
"Dr. Devonham!" she exclaimed. "How ever did you
guess?" She looked very charming in her innocent con-
fusion.
He laughed. "If you don't take it off at once," he told
her solemnly, "you may get another."
"It was two in a single week," she confided a little
tremulously. "Fancy !"
"The important thing, then," he suggested, "is to wear
your talisman at the right moment, and with the right
person."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 139
But she corrected him promptly.
"Oh, no. It brings the right moment and the right person
together, don't you see, and if the other person is a Pisces
person, you understand each other, of course, at once."
"Would that I too were Pisces!" he exclaimed, seeing
that she was flattered by his interest. "I'm probably"
taking a sign at random "Scorpio."
"No," she said with grave disappointment, "I'm afraid
you're Capricornus, you know. I can tell by your nose
and eyes and cleverness. But I wanted really to ask
you," she went on half shyly, "if I might " She stuck
fast.
"You want to know," he said, glancing at her with quick
understanding, "who he is." He pointed to the door. "Isn't
that it?"
She nodded her head, while a divine little blush spread
over her face. Devonham became more interested. "Why ?"
he asked. "Did he impress you so?"
"Rather," she replied with emphasis, and there was some-
thing in her earnestness curiously convincing. A sincere
impression had been registered.
"His appearance, you mean?"
She nodded again; the blush deepened; but it was not,
he saw, an ordinary blush. The sensitive young girl had
awe in her. "He's a friend of Dr. Fillery's," he told her;
"a young man who's lived in the wilds all his life. But,
tell me why are you so interested? Did he make any
particular impression on you?"
He watched her. His own thoughts dropped back sud-
denly to a strange memory of woods and mountains . . .
a sunset, a blazing fire ... a hint of panic.
"Yes," she said, her tone lower, "he did."
"Something very definite?"
She made no answer.
"What did you see?" he persisted gently. From woods
and mountains, memory stepped back to a railway station
and a customs official. . . .
HO THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Her manner, obviously truthful, had deep wonder, mys-
tery, even worship in it. He was aware of a nervous
reaction he disliked, almost a chill. He listened for her
next words with an interest he could hardly account for.
"Wings," she replied, an odd hush in her voice. "I
thought of wings. He seemed to carry me off the earth
with great rushing wings, as the wind blows a leaf. It
was too lovely: I felt like a dancing flame. I thought he
was "
"What?" Something in his mind held its breath a
moment.
"You won't laugh, Dr. Devonham, will you? I thought
for a second of an angel." Her voice died away.
For a second the part of his mood that held its breath
struggled between anger and laughter. A moment's con-
fusion in him there certainly was.
"That makes two in the room," he said gently, recover-
ing himself. He smiled. But she did not hear the playful
compliment; she did not see the smile. "You've a delight-
ful, poetic little soul," he added under his breath, watching
the big earnest eyes whose rapt expression met his own so
honestly. Having made her confession she was still
engrossed, absorbed, he saw, in her own emotion. ... So
this was the picture that LeVallon, by his mere appearance
alone, left upon an impressionable young girl, an impres-
sion, he realized, that was profound and true and absolute,
whatever value her own individual interpretation of it
might have. Her mention of space, wind, fire, speed, he
noticed in particular "off the earth . . . rushing wind . . .
dancing flame ... an angel !"
It was easy, of course, to jeer. Yet, somehow, he did
not jeer at all.
She relapsed into silence, which proved how great had
been the emotional discharge accompanying the confession,
temporarily exhausting her. Dr. Devonham keenly regis-
tered the small, important details.
"Entertaining an angel unawares in a Chelsea Studio/'
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 141
he said, laughingly ; then reminding her presently that there
was a lady who was "dying to be introduced" to him, made
his escape, and for the next ten minutes found himself
listening to a disquisition on auras which described "visible
atmospheres whose colour changes with emotion . . . radio-
activity . . . the halo worn by saints" . . . the effect of
light noticed about very good people and of blackness that
the wicked emanated, and ending up with the "radiant
atmosphere that shone round the figure of Christ and was
believed to show the most lovely and complicated geomet-
rical designs."
"God geometrizes you, doubtless, know the ancient say-
ing ?" Mrs. Towzer said it like a challenge.
"I have heard it," admitted her listener shortly, his first
opportunity of making himself audible. "Plato said some
other fine things too "
"I felt sure you were feeling cross just now," the lady
went on, "because I saw lines and arrows of crimson dart-
ing and flashing through your aura while you were talking
to Mr. Povey. He is very annoying sometimes, isn't he?
I often wonder where all our subscriptions go to. I never
could understand a balance-sheet- Can you ?"
But Devonham, having noticed Dr. Fillery moving across
the room, did not answer, even if he heard the question.
Fillery, he saw, was now standing near the door where
Khilkoff and LeVallon had disappeared to see the sculpture,
an oddly rapt expression on his face. He was talking with
a member called Father Collins. The buzz of voices, the
incessant kaleidoscope of colour and moving figures, made
the atmosphere a little electric. Extricating himself with a
neat excuse, he crossed towards his colleague, but the latter
was already surrounded before he reached him. A forest of
coloured scarves, odd coiffures, gleaming talismans, inter-
vened; he saw men's faces of intense, eager, preoccupied
expression, old and young, long hair and bald; there was
a new perfume in the air, incense evidently; tea, coffee,
lemonade were being served, with stronger drink for the
142 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
few who liked it, and cigarettes were everywhere. The
note everywhere was exalte rather.
Out of the excited throng his eyes then by chance,
apparently, picked up the figure of Lady Gleeson, smoking
her cigarette alone in a big armchair, a half-empty glass of
wine-cup beside her. She caught his attention instantly,
this "pretty Lady Gleeson," although personally he found
neither title nor adjective justified. The dark hair framed
a very white skin. The face was shallow, trivial, yet with
a direct intensity in the shining eyes that won for her the
reputation of being attractive to certain men. Her smile
added to the notoriety she loved, a curious smile that lifted
the lip oddly, showing the little pointed teeth. To him, it
seemed somehow a face that had been over-kissed; every-
thing had been kissed out of it; the mouth, the lips, were
worn and barren in an appearance otherwise still young.
She was very expensively dressed, and deemed her legs of
such symmetry that it were a shame to hide them; clad in
tight silk stockings, and looking like strips of polished steel,
they were now visible almost to the knee, where the edge
of the skirt, neatly trimmed in fur, cut them off sharply.
Some wag in the Society, paraphrasing the syllables of her
name, wittily if unkindly, had christened her fille de joie.
When she heard it she was rather pleased than otherwise.
Lady Gleeson, too, he saw now, was watching the private
door. The same moment, as so often occurred between
himself and his colleague at some significant point in time
and space, he was aware of Fillery's eye upon his own
across the intervening heads and shoulders. Fillery, also,
had noticed that Lady Gleeson watched that door. His
changed position in the room was partly explained.
A slightly cynical smile touched Dr. Devonham's lips, but
vanished again quickly, as he approached the lady, bowed
politely, and asked if he might bring her some refreshment.
He was too discerning to say "more" refreshment. But
she dotted every i, she had no half tones.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 143
"Thanks, kind Dr. Devonham," she said in a decided
tone, her voice thin, a trifle husky, yet not entirely un-
musical. It held a strange throaty quality. "It's so absurdly
light," she added, holding out the glass she first emptied.
"The mystics don't hold with anything strong apparently.
But I'm tired, and you discovered it. That's clever of you.
It'll do me good."
He, malevolently, assured her that it would.
"Who's your friend?" she asked point blank, with an
air that meant to have a proper answer, as he brought the
glass and took a chair near her. "He looks unusual. More
like a hurdle-race champion than a visionary." A sneer
lurked in the voice. She fixed her determined clear grey
eyes upon his, eyes sparkling with interest, curiosity in life,
desire, the last-named quality of unmistakable kind. "I
think I should like to know him perhaps." It was mentioned
as a favour to the other.
Devonham, who disliked and disapproved of all these
people collectively, felt angry suddenly with Fillery for
having brought LeVallon among them. It was after all a
foolish experiment ; the atmosphere was dangerous for any-
one of unstable, possibly of hysterical temperament. He
had vengeance to discharge. He answered with deliberate
malice, leading her on that he might watch her reactions.
She was so transparently sincere.
"I hardly think Mr. LeVallon would interest you," he
said lightly. "He is neither modern nor educated. He has
spent his life in the backwoods, and knows nothing but
plants and stars and weather and animals. You would find
him dull."
"No man with a face and figure like that can be dull,"
she said quickly, her eyes alight.
He glanced at her rings, the jewelry round her neck, her
expensive gown that would keep a patient for a year or
two. He remembered her millionaire South African
husband who was her foolish slave. She lived, he knew,
144 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
entirely for her own small, selfish pleasure. Although he
meant to use her, his gorge rose. He produced his happiest
smile.
"You are a keen observer, Lady Gleeson," he remarked.
"He doesn't look quite ordinary, I admit." After a pause
he added, "It's a curious thing, but Mr. LeVallon doesn't
care for the charms that we other men succumb to so easily.
He seems indifferent. What he wants is knowledge only.
. . . Apparently he's more interested in stars than in girls."
"Rubbish," she rejoined. "He hasn't met any in his
woods, that's all."
Her directness rather disconcerted him. At the same
time, it charmed him a little, though he did not know it.
His dislike of the woman, however, remained. The idle,
self-centred rich annoyed him. They were so useless. The
fabulous jewelry hanging upon such trash now stirred his
bile. He was conscious of the lust for pleasure in her.
"Yet, after all, he's rather an interesting fellow perhaps,"
he told her, as with an air of sudden enthusiasm. "Do you
know he talks of rather wonderful things, too. Mere
dreams, of course, yet, for all that, out of the ordinary. He
has vague memories, it seems, of another state of existence
altogether. He speaks sometimes of of marvellous women,
compared to whom our women here, our little dressed-up
dolls, seem commonplace and insignificant." And, to his
keen enjoyment, Lady Gleeson took the bait with open
mouth. She recrossed her shapely legs. She wriggled a
little in her chair. Her be-ringed fingers began fidgeting
along the priceless necklace.
"Just what I should expect," she replied in her throaty
voice, "from a young man who looks as he does."
She began to play her own cards then, mentioning that
her husband was interested in Dr. Fillery's Clinique. Devon-
ham, however, at once headed her off. He described the
work of the Home with enthusiasm. "It's fortunate that
Dr. Fillery is rich," he observed carelessly, "and can follow
out his own ideas exactly as he likes. I, personally, should
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 145
never have joined him had he been dependent upon the
mere philanthropist."
"How wise of you," she returned. "And I should never
have joined this mad Society but for the chance of coming
across unusual people. Now, your Mr. LeVallon is one.
You may introduce him to me," she repeated as an
ultimatum.
Her directness was the one thing he admired in her.
At her own level, she was real. He was aware of the
semi-erotic atmosphere about these Meetings and realized
that Lady Gleeson came in search of excitement, also that
she was too sincere to hide it. She wore her insignia
unconcealed. Her talisman was of base metal, the one cheap
thing she wore, yet real. This foolish woman, after all,
might be of use unwittingly. She might capture LeVallon,
if only for a moment, before Nayan Khilkoff enchanted
him with that wondrous sweetness to which no man could
remain indifferent. For he had long ago divined the natural,
unspoken passion between his Chief and the daughter of
his host, and with his whole heart he desired to advance it.
"My husband, too, would like to meet him, I'm sure,"
he heard her saying, while he smiled at the reappearance
of the gilded bait. "My husband, you know, is interested
in spirit photography and Dr. Frood's unconscious theories."
He rose, without even a smile. "I'll try and find him
at once," he said, "and bring him to you. I only hope,"
he added as an afterthought, "that Miss Khilkoff hasn't
monopolized him already "
"She hasn't come," Lady Gleeson betrayed herself.
Instinctively she knew her rival, he saw, with an inward
chuckle, as he rose to fetch the desired male.
He found him the centre of a little group just inside \
the door leading into the sculptor's private studio, where
Khilkoff had evidently been showing his new group of
elemental figures. Fillery, a few feet away, observing
everything at close range, was still talking eagerly with
Father Collins. LeVallon and Kempster, the pacifist, were
146 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
in the middle of an earnest talk, of which Devonham caught
an interesting fragment. Kempster's qualification for
membership was an occasional display of telepathy. He
was a neat little man exceedingly well dressed, over-dressed
in fact, for his tailor's dummy appearance betrayed that he
thought too much about his personal appearance. LeVallon,
towering over him like some flaming giant, spoke quietly,
but with rare good sense, it seemed. Fillery's condensed
education had worked wonders on his mind. Devonham
was astonished. About the pair others had collected, listen-
ing, sometimes interjecting opinions of their own, many
women among them leaning against the furniture or sitting
on cushions and movable, dump-like divans on the floor.
It was a picturesque little scene. But LeVallon somehow
dwarfed the others.
"I really think," Kempster was saying, "we might now
become a comfortable little third-rate Power like Spain,
for instance enjoy ourselves a bit, live on our splendid
past, and take the sun in ease." He looked about him with
a self-satisfied smirk, as though he had himself played a
fine role in the splendid past.
LeVallon's reply surprised him perhaps, but it surprised
Devonham still more. The real, the central self, LeVallon,
he thought with satisfaction, was waking and developing.
His choice of words was odd too.
"No, no ! You the English are the leaders of the world ;
the best quality is in you. If you give up, the world goes
down and backwards." The deep, musical tones vibrated
through the little room. The speaker, though so quiet, had
the air of a powerful athlete, ready to strike. His pose
was admirable. Faces turned up and stared. There was
a murmur of approval.
"We're so tired of that talk," replied Kempster, no whit
disconcerted by the evident signs of his unpopularity.
"Each race should take its turn. We've borne the white
man's burden long enough. Why not drop it, and let an-
other nation do its bit? We've earned a rest, I think."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 147
His precise, high voice was persuasive. He was a good
public speaker, wholly impervious to another point of view.
But the resonant tones of LeVallon's rejoinder seemed to
bury him, voice, exquisite clothes and all.
"There is no other unless you hand it back to weaker
shoulders. No other race has the qualities of generosity,
of big careless courage of the unselfish kind required.
Above all, you alone have the chivalry."
Two things Devonham noted as he heard: behind the
natural resonance in the big voice lay a curious deepness
that made him think of thunder, a volume of sound sup-
pressed, potential, roaring, which, if let loose, might over-
whelm, submerge. It belonged to an earnestness as yet
unsuspected in him, a strength of conviction based on a
great purpose that was evidently subconscious in him, as
though he served it, belonged to it, without realizing that
he did so. He stood there like some new young prophet,
proclaiming a message not entirely his own. Also he said
"you" in place of the natural "we."
Devonham listened attentively. Here, too, at any rate,
was an exchange of ideas above the "psychic" level he so
disliked.
LeVallon, he noticed at once, showed no evidence of
emotion, though his eyes shone brightly and his voice was
earnest.
"America " began Kempster, but was knocked down
by a fact before he could continue.
"Has deliberately made itself a Province again. America
saw the ideal, then drew back, afraid. It is once more
provincial, cut off from the planet, a big island again, con-
cerned with local affairs of its own. Your Democracy has
failed."
"As it always must," put in Kempster, glad perhaps to
shift the point, when he found no ready answer. "The
wider the circle from which statesmen are drawn, the lower
the level of ability. We should be patriotic for ideas, not
for places. The success of one country means the downfall
148 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
of another. That's not spiritual. , , ." He continued at
high speed, but Devonham missed the words. He was too
preoccupied with the other's language, penetration, point
of view. LeVallon had, indeed, progressed. There was
nothing of the alternative personality in this, nothing of
the wild, strange, nature-being whom he called "N. H."
"Patriotism, of course, is vulgar rubbish," he heard
Kempster finishing his tirade. "It is local, provincial. The
world is a whole."
But LeVallon did not let him escape so easily. It was
admirable really. This half-educated countryman from the
woods and mountains had a clear, concentrated mind. He
had risen too. Whence came his comprehensive outlook ?
"Chivalry you call it sporting instinct is the first essen-
tial of a race that is to lead the world. It is a topmost
quality. Your race has it. It has come down even into
your play. It is instinctive in you more than any other.
And chivalry is unselfish. It is divine. You have con-
quered the sun. The hot races all obey you."
The thunder broke through the strange but simple words
which, in that voice, and with that quiet earnestness, carried
some weight of meaning in them that print cannot convey.
The women gazed at him with unconcealed, if not with
understanding admiration. "Lead us, inspire us, at any
rate!" their eyes said plainly; "but love us, O love us,
passionately, above all!"
Devonham, hardly able to believe his ears and eyes,
turned to see if Fillery had heard the scrap of talk. Judg-
ing by the expression on his face, he had not heard it.
Father Collins seemed saying things that held his attention
too closely. Yet Fillery, for all his apparent absorption,
had heard it, though he read it otherwise than his some-
what literal colleague. It was, nevertheless, an interesting
revelation to him, since it proved to him again how unreal
"LeVallon" was ; how easily, quickly this educated simula-
crum caught up, assimilated and reproduced as his own,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 149
yet honestly, whatever was in the air at the moment. For
the words he had spoken were not his own, but Fillery's.
They lay, or something like them lay, unuttered in Fillery's
mind just at that very moment. Yet, even while listening
attentively to Father Collins, his close interest in LeVallon
was so keen, so watchful, that another portion of his mind
was listening to this second conversation, even taking part
in it inaudibly. LeVallon caught his language from the
Devonham made his opportunity, leading LeVallon off
to be introduced to Lady Gleeson, who still sat waiting for
them on the divan in the outer studio.
As they made their way through the buzzing throng into
the larger room, Devonham guessed suddenly that Lady
Gleeson must somehow have heard in advance that Le-
Vallon would be present; her flair for new men was
singular; the sexual instinct, unduly developed, seemed
aware of its prey anywhere within a big radius. He owed
his friend a hint of guidance possibly. "A little woman,"
he explained as they crossed over, "who has a weakness
for big men and will probably pay you compliments. She
comes here to amuse herself with what she calls 'the
freaks.' Sometimes she lends her great house for the meet-
ings. Her husband's a millionaire." To which the other,
in his deep, quiet voice, replied: "Thank you, Dr. Devon-
ham."
"She's known as 'the pretty Lady Gleeson.' "
"That?" exclaimed the other, looking towards her.
"Hush !" his companion warned him.
As they approached, Lady Gleeson, waiting with keen
impatience, saw them coming and made her preparations.
The frown of annoyance at the long delay was replaced by
a smile of welcome that lifted the upper lip on one side
only, showing the white even teeth with odd effect. She
stared at LeVallon, thought Devonham, as a wolf eyes its
prey. Deftly lowering her dress betraying thereby that
150
she knew it was too high, and a detail now best omitted
from the picture she half rose from her seat as they came
up. The instinctive art of deference, though instantly cor-
rected, did not escape Paul Devonham's too observant eye.
"You were kind enough to say I might introduce my
friend," murmured he. "Mr. LeVallon is new to our big
London 2 and a stranger among all these people."
LeVallon bowed in his calm, dignified fashion, saying
no word, but Lady Gleeson put her hand out, and, finding
his own, shook it with her air of brilliant welcome. Determi-
nation lay in her smile and in her gesture, in her voice as
well, as she said familiarly at once: "But, Mr. LeVallon,
how tall are you, really? You seem to me a perfect giant."
She made room for him beside her on the divan. "Every-
body here looks undersized beside you !" She became
intense.
"I am six feet and three inches," he replied literally, but
without expression in his face. There was no smile. He
was examining her as frankly as she examined him. Devon-
ham was examining the pair of them. The lack of interest,
the cold indifference in LeVallon, he reflected, must put
the young woman on her mettle, accustomed as she was to
quick submission in her victims.
LeVallon, however, did not accept the offered seat; per-
haps he had not noticed the invitation. He showed no
interest, though polite and gentle.
"He towers over all of us," Devonham put in, to help
an awkward pause. Yet he meant it more than literally;
the empty prettiness of the shallow little face before him,
the triviality of Miss Rosa Mystica, the cheapness of Povey,
Kempster, Mrs. Towzer, the foolish air of otherworldly
expectancy in the whole room, of deliberate exaggeration,
of eyes big with wonder for sensation as story followed
story all this came upon him with its note of poverty and
tawdriness as he used the words.
Something in the atmosphere of LeVallon had this effect
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 151
whence did it come? he questioned, puzzled of dwarfing
all about him.
"All London, remember, isn't like this," he heard Lady
Gleeson saying, a dangerous purr audible in the throaty
voice. "Do sit down here and tell me what you think about
it. I feel you don't belong here quite, do you know?
London cramps you, doesn't it? And you find the women
dull and insipid?" She deliberately made more room, pat-
ting the cushions invitingly with a flashing hand, that alone,
thought Devonham contemptuously, could have endowed
at least two big Cliniques. "Tell me about yourself, Mr.
LeVallon. I'm dying to hear about your life in the woods
and mountains. Do talk to me. I am so bored!"
What followed surprised Devonham more than any of
the three perhaps. He ascribed it to what Fillery had called
the "natural gentleman," while Lady Gleeson, doubtless,
ascribed it to her own personal witchery.
With that easy grace of his he sat down instantly beside
her on the low divan, his height and big frame contriving
the awkward movement without a sign of clumsiness. His
indifference was obvious to Devonham, but the vain eyes
of the woman did not notice it.
"That's better," she again welcomed him with a happy
laugh. She edged closer a little. "Now, do make yourself
comfortable" she arranged the cushions again "and
please tell me about your wild life in the forests, or wherever
it was. You know a lot about the stars, I hear." She
devoured his face and figure with her shining eyes.
The upper lip was lifted for a second above a gleaming
tooth. Devonham had the feeling she was about to eat him,
licking her lips already in anticipation. He himself would
be dismissed, he well knew, in another moment, for Lady
Gleeson would not tolerate a third person at the meal. Be-
fore he was sent about his business, however, he had the
good fortune to hear LeVallon's opening answer to the
foolish invitation. Amazement filled him, He wished
152 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Fillery could have heard it with him, seen the play of ex-
pression on the faces too the bewilderment of sensational
hunger for something new in Lady Gleeson's staring eyes,
arrested instantaneously; the calm, cold look of power,
yet power tempered by a touch of pity, in LeVallon's glance,
a glance that was only barely aware of her proximity. He
smiled as he spoke, and the smile increased his natural
radiance. He looked extraordinarily handsome, yet with
a new touch of strangeness that held even the cautious
doctor momentarily almost spellbound.
"Stars yes, but I rarely see them here in London, and
they seem so far away. They comfort me. They bring
me they and women bring me nearest to a condition that
is gone from me. I have lost it." He looked straight into
her face, so that she blinked and screwed up her eyes, while
her breathing came more rapidly. "But stars and women,"
he went on, his voice vibrating with music in spite of its
quietness, "remind me that it is recoverable. Both give me
this sweet message. I read it in stars and in the eyes of
women. And it is true because no words convey it. For
women cannot express themselves, I see; and stars, too,
are silent here."
The same soft thunder as before sounded below the
gently spoken words; Lady Gleeson was trembling a little;
she made a movement by means of which she shifted her-
self yet nearer to her companion in what seemed a natural
and unconscious way. It was doubtless his proximity rather
than his words that stirred her. Her face was set, though
the lips quivered a trifle and the voice was less shrill than
usual as she spoke, holding out her empty glass.
"Thank you, Dr. Devonham," she said icily.
The determined gesture, a toss of the head, with the
glare of sharp impatience in the eyes, he could not ignore;
yet he accepted his curt dismissal slowly enough to catch
her murmured words to LeVallon:
"How wonderful ! How wonderful you are ! And what
sort of women . . . ?" followed him as he moved away.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 153
In his heart rose again an uncomfortable memory of a
Jura valley blazing in the sunset, and of a half-naked figure
worshipping before a great wood fire on the rocks. . . .
He fancied he caught, too, in the voice, a suggestion of a
lilt, a chanting resonance, that increased his uneasiness
further. One thing was certain: it was not quite the ordi-
nary "LeVallon" that answered the silly woman. The
reaction was of a different kind. Was, then, the other self
awake and stirring? Was it "N. H." after all, as his
colleague claimed ?
Allowing a considerable interval to pass, he returned with
a glass of lemonade reaching the divan in its dimlit
corner just in time to see a flashing hand withdrawn quickly
from LeVallon's arm, and to intercept a glance that told
him the intrigue evidently had not developed altogether
according to Lady Gleeson's plan, although her air was one
of confidence and keenest self-satisfaction. LeVallon sat
like a marble figure, cold, indifferent, looking straight be-
fore him, listening, if only with half an ear, to a stream
of words whose import it was not difficult to guess.
This Devonham' s practised eye read in the flashing look
she shot at him, and in the quick way she thanked him.
"Coffee, dear Dr. Devonham, I asked for."
Her move was so quick, his desire to watch them a
moment longer together so keen, that for an instant he
appeared to hesitate. It was more than appearance ; he did
hesitate an instant merely, yet long enough for Lady
Gleeson to shoot at him a second swift glance of concen-
trated virulence, and also long enough for LeVallon to
spring lightly to his feet, take the glass from his hand and
vanish in the direction of the refreshment table before any-
thing could prevent. "I will get your coffee for you," still
sounded in the air, so quickly was the adroit manoeuvre
executed. LeVallon had cleverly escaped.
"How stupid of me," said Devonham quickly, referring
to the pretended mistake. Lady Gleeson made no reply.
Her inward fury betrayed itself, however, in the tight-set
154 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
lips and the hard glitter of her brilliant little eyes. "He
won't be a moment," the other added. "Do you find him
interesting? He's not very talkative as a rule, but perhaps
with you " He hardly knew what words he used.
The look she gave him stopped him, so intense was the
bitterness in the eyes. His interruption, then, must indeed
have been worse or better? timed than he had imagined.
She made no pretence of speaking. Turning her glance in
the direction whence the coffee must presently appear, she
waited, and Devonham might have been a dummy for all
the sign she gave of his being there. He had made an
enemy for life, he felt, a feeling confirmed by what almost
immediately then followed. Neither the coffee nor its
bearer came that evening to pretty Lady Gleeson in the
way she had desired. She laid the blame at Devonham's
door.
For at that moment, as he stood before her, secretly
enjoying her anger a little, yet feeling foolish, perhaps, as
well, a chord sounded on the piano, and a hush passed
instantly over the entire room. Someone was about to sing.
Nayan Khilkoff had come in, unnoticed, by the door of the
private room. Her singing invariably formed a part of
these entertainments. The song, too, was the one invariably
asked for, its music written by herself.
All talk and movement stopped at the sound of the little
prelude, as though a tap had been turned off. Even Devon-
ham, most unmusical of men, prepared to listen with enjoy-
ment. He tried to see Nayan at the piano, but too many
people came between. He saw, instead, LeVallon standing
close at his side, the cup of coffee in his hand. He had
that instant returned.
"For Lady Gleeson. Will you pass it to her? Who's
going to sing?" he whispered all in the same breath. And
Devonham told him, as he bent down to give the cup.
"Nayan Khilkoff. Hush! It's a lovely song. I know it
The Vagrant's Epitaph.' "
They stood motionless to listen, as the pure voice of the
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 155
girl, singing very simply but with the sweetness and truth
of sincere feeling, filled the room. Every word, too, was
clearly audible :
"Change was his mistress; Chance his counsellor.
Love could not hold him ; Duty forged no chain.
The wide seas and the mountains called him,
And grey dawns saw his camp-fires in the rain.
"Sweet hands might tremble! aye, but he must go.
Revel might hold him for a little space;
But, turning past the laughter and the lamps,
His eyes must ever catch the luring Face.
"Dear eyes might question! Yea, and melt again;
Rare lips a-quiver, silently implore;
But he must ever turn his furtive head,
And hear that other summons at the door.
"Change was his mistress; Chance his counsellor.
The dark firs knew his whistle up the trail.
Why tarries he to-day? . . . And yesternight
Adventure lit her stars without avail."
CHAPTER XIII
LADY GLEESON, owing to an outraged vanity and
jealousy she was unable to control, missed the final
scene, for before the song was actually finished she was
gone. Being near a passage that was draped only by a
curtain, she slipped out easily, flung herself into a luxurious
motor, and vanished into the bleak autumn night.
She had seen enough. Her little heart raged with selfish
fury. What followed was told her later by word of mouth.
Never could she forgive herself that she had left the
studio before the thing had happened. She blamed Devon-
ham for that too.
For LeVallon, it appears, having passed the cup of coffee
to her through a third person in itself an insult of indif-
ference and neglect stood absorbed in the words and music
of the song., Being head and shoulders above the throng,
he easily saw the girl at the piano. No one, unless it was
Fillery, a few yards away, watched him as closely as did
Devonham and Lady Gleeson, though all three for different
reasons. It was Devonham, however, who made the most
accurate note of what he saw, though Fillery 's memory was
possibly the truer, since his own inner being supplied the
fuller and more sympathetic interpretation.
LeVallon, tall and poised, stood there like a great figure
shaped in bronze. He was very calm. His bright hair
seemed to rise a little ; his eyes, steady and wondering, gazed
fixedly; his features, though set, were mobile in the sense
that any instant they might leap into the alive and fluid
expression of some strong emotion. His whole being, in
a word, stood at attention, alert for instant action of some
uncontrollable, perhaps terrific kind, "He seemed like a
156
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 157
glowing pillar of metal that must burst into flame the very
next instant," as a Member told Lady Gleeson later.
Devonham watched him. LeVallon seemed transfixed.
He stared above the intervening tousled heads. He drew
a series of deep breaths that squared his shoulders and
made his chest expand. His very muscles ached apparently
for instant action. An intensity of wondering joy and
admiration that lit his face made the eyes shine like stars.
He watched the singing girl as a tiger watches the keeper
who brings its long-expected food. The instant the bar is
up, it springs, it leaps, it carries off, devours. Only, in
this case, there were no bars. Nor was the wild desire for
nourishment of a carnal kind. It was companionship, it
was intercourse with his own that he desired so intensely.
"He divines the motherhood in her," thought Fillery,
watching closely, pain and happiness mingled in his heart.
"The protective, selfless, upbuilding power lies close to
Nature." And as this flashed across him he caught a
glimpse by chance of its exact opposite in Lady Gleeson's
peering, glittering eyes the destructive lust, the selfish
passion, the bird of prey.
"The dark firs knew his whistle up the trail," the song
in that soft true voice drew to its close. LeVallon was
trembling.
"Good Heavens !" thought Devonham. "Is it 'N. H.' ?
Is it 'N. H./ after all, waking rising to take possession?"
He, too, trembled.
It was here that Lady Gleeson, close, intuitive observer
of her escaping prey, rose up and slipped away, her going
hardly noticed by the half -entranced, half-dreaming hearts
about her, each intent upon its own small heaven of neat
desire. She went as unobstrusively as an animal that is
aware of untoward conditions and surroundings, showing
her teeth, feeling her claws, yet knowing herself helpless.
Not even Devonham, his mind ever keenly alert, observed
her going. Fillery, alone, conscious of LeVallon's eyes
across the room, took note of it. She left, her violent little
158 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
will intent upon vengeance of a later victory that she still
promised herself with concentrated passion.
Yet Devonham, though he failed to notice the slim animal
of prey in exit, noticed this that the face he watched so
closely changed quickly even as he watched, and that the
new expression, growing upon it as heat grows upon metal
set in a flame, was an expression he had seen before. He
had seen it in that lonely mountain valley where a setting
sun poured gold upon a burning pyre, upon a dancing, chant-
ing figure, upon a human face he now watched in this
ridiculous little Chelsea studio. The sharpness of the air,
the very perfume, stole over him as he stared, perplexed,
excited and uneasy. That strange, wild, innocent and tender
face, that power, that infinite yearning ! LeVallon had dis-
appeared. It was "N. H." that stood and watched the
singer at the little modern piano.
Then with the end of the song came the rush, the bustle
of applause, the confusion of many people rising, trotting
forward, all talking at once, all moving towards the singer
when LeVallon, hitherto motionless as a statue, suddenly
leaped past and through them like a vehement wind through
a whirl of crackling dead leaves. Only his deft, skilful
movement, of poise and perfect balance combined with
accurate swiftness, could have managed it without bruised
bodies and angry cries. There was no clumsiness, no visible
effort, no appearance of undue speed. He seemed to move
quietly, though he moved like fire. In a moment he was
by the piano, and Nayan, in the act of rising from her
stool, gazed straight up into his great lighted eyes.
It was singular how all made way for him, drew back,
looked on. Confusion threatened. Emotion surged like
a rising sea. Without a leader there might easily have been
tumult; even a scene. But Fillery was there. His figure
intervened at once.
"Nayan," he said in a steady voice, "this is my friend,
Mr. LeVallon. He wants to thank you."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 159
But, before she could answer, LeVallon, his hand upon
her arm, said quickly, yet so quietly that few heard the
actual words, perhaps his voice resonant, his eyes alight
with joy: "You are here too with me, with Fillery. We
are all exiles together. But you know the way out the
way back ! You remember ! . . ."
She stared with delicious wonder into his eyes as he
went on :
"O star and woman! Your voice is wind and fire.
Come!" And he tried to seize her. "We will go back
together. We work here in vain! . . ." His arms were
round her; almost their faces touched.
The girl rose instantly, took a step towards him, then
hung back; the stool fell over with a crash; a hubbub of
voices rose in the room behind; Povey, Kempster, a dozen
Members with them, pressed up; the women, with half-
shocked, half -frightened eyes, gaped and gasped over the
forest of intervening male shoulders. A universal shuffle
followed. The confusion was absurd and futile. Both male
and female stood aghast and stupid before what they saw,
for behind the mere words and gestures there was some-
thing that filled the little scene with a strange shaking power,
touching the panic sense.
LeVallon lifted her across his shoulders.
The beautiful girl was radiant, the man wore the sudden
semblance of a god. Their very stature increased. They
stood alone. Yet Fillery, close by, stood with them. There
seemed a magic circle none dared cross about the three.
Something immense, unearthly, had come into the room,
bursting its little space. Even Devonham, breaking with
vehemence through the human ring, came to a sudden halt.
In a voice of thunder though it was not actually loud
LeVallon cried:
"Their little personal loves! They cannot understand!"
He bore Nayan in his arms as wind might lift a loose flower
and whirl it aloft. 'Come back with me, come home! The
160 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Sun forgets us here, the Wind is silent. There is no Fire.
Our work, our service calls us." He turned to Fillery.
"You too. Come!"
His voice boomed like a thundering wind against the
astonished frightened faces staring at him. It rose to a
cry of intense emotion: "We are in little exile here! In
our wrong place, cut off from the service of our gods ! We
will go back!" He started, with the girl flung across his
frame. He took one stride. The others shuffled back with
one accord.
"The other summons at the door. But, Edward! you
you too!"
It was Nayan's voice, as the girl clung willingly to the
great neck and arms, the voice of the girl all loved and
worshipped and thought wonderful beyond temptation; it
was this familiar sound that ran through the bewildered,
startled throng like an electric shock. They could not be-
lieve their eyes, their ears. They -stood transfixed.
Within their circle stood LeVallon, holding the girl, al-
most embracing her, while she lay helpless with happiness
upon his huge enfolding arms. He paused, looked round
at Fillery a moment. None dared approach. The men
gazed, wondering, and with faculties arrested; the women
stared, stock still, with beating hearts. All felt a lifting,
splendid wonder they could not understand. Devonham,
mute and motionless before an inexplicable thing, found
himself bereft of judgment. Analysis and precedent, for
once, both failed. He looked round in vain for Khilkoff.
Fillery alone seemed master of himself, a look of suffer-
ing and joy shone in his face; one hand lay steady upon
LeVallon's arm.
Within the little circle these three figures formed a
definite group, filling the beholders, for the first time in
their so-called "psychic" experience, with the thrill of some-
thing utterly beyond their ken something genuine at last.
For there seemed about the group, though emanating, as
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 161
with shining power, from the figure of LeVallon chiefly,
some radiating force, some elemental vigour they could not
comprehend. Its presence made the scene possible, even
right.
"Edward you too! What is it, O, what is it? There
are flowers great winds ! I see the fire !"
A searching tenderness in her tone broke almost beyond
the limits of the known human voice.
There swept over the onlookers a wave of incredible
emotion then, as they saw LeVallon move towards them,
as though he would pass through them and escape. He
seemed in that moment stupendous, irresistible. He looked
divine. The girl lay in his arms like some young radiant
child. He did not kiss her, no sign of a caress was seen;
he did no ordinary, human thing. His towering figure,
carrying his burden almost negligently, came out of the
circle "like a tide" towards them, as one described it later
or as a poem that appeared later in "Simplicity" began:
"With his hair of wind
And his eyes of fire
And his face of infinite desire . . ."
He swept nearer. They stirred again in a confused and
troubled shuffle, opening a way. They shrank back farther.
They shivered, like crying shingle a vast wave draws back.
Only Fillery stood still, making no sign or movement ; upon
his face that look of joy and pain wild joy and searching
pain no one, perhaps, but Devonham understood.
"Wind and fire !" boomed LeVallon's tremendous voice.
"We return to our divine, eternal service. O Wind and
Fire ! We come back at last !" An immense rhythm swept
across the room.
Then it was, without announcement of word or action,
that Nayan, suddenly leaping from the great enfolding
arms, stood upright between the two figures, one hand out-
stretched towards Fillery.
162 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
At which moment, emerging apparently from nowhere,
Khilkoff appeared upon the scene. During the music he
had left the studio to find certain sketches he wished to
show to LeVallon; he had witnessed nothing, therefore,
of what had just occurred. He now stood still, staring in
sheer surprise. The people in a ring, gazing with excited,
rapt expression into the circle they thus formed, looked
like an audience watching some performance that dazed and
stupefied them, in which Fillery, LeVallon and Nayan
his own daughter were the players. He took ft for an
impromptu charade, perhaps, something spontaneously
arranged during his absence. Yet he was obviously
staggered.
As he entered, the girl had just leaped from the arms
that held her, and run towards Fillery, who stood erect
and motionless in the centre of the circle; and LeVallon's
wild splendid cry in that instant shook its grand music
across the vaulted room. So well acted, so dramatic, so
real was the scene thus interrupted that Khilkoff stood star-
ing in silence, thinking chiefly, as he said afterwards, that
the young man's pose and attitude were exactly magnifi-
cently what he wanted for the figure of Fire and Wind
in his elemental group.
This enthusiastic thought, with the attempt to engrave
it permanently in his memory, filled his mind completely
for an instant, when there broke in upon it again that
resonant voice, half cry, half chant, vibrating with depth
and music, yet quiet too:
"Wind and Fire! My Wind and Fire! O Sun your
messengers are come for us! ... Oh, come with power
and take us with you ! . . ." Its rhythm was gigantic.
So extraordinary was the volume, yet the sweetness, too,
in the voice, though its actual loudness was not great
so arresting was its quality, that Khilkoff, as he put it after-
wards, thought he heard an entirely new sound, a sound
his ears had never known before. He, like the rest of the
astonished audience, was caught spell-bound. But for an
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 163
instant only. For at once there followed another voice,
releasing the momentary spell, and, with the accompanying
action, warned him that what he saw was no mere game
of acting. This was real.
"I hear that other summons at the door! . . "
Her hands were outstretched, her eyes alight with yearn-
ing, she was oblivious of everyone but Fillery, LeVallon
and herself.
And her father, then, breaking through the crowding
figures, packed shoulder to shoulder nearest to him, entered
the circle. His mind was confused, perhaps, for vague
ideas of some undesirable hypnotic influence, of some foolish
experiment that had become too real, passed through it.
He knew one thing only this scene, whether real or acted,
pretence or sincere, must be stopped. The look on his
daughter's face entirely new and strange to him was
all the evidence he needed. He shouldered his way through
like an angry bear, making inarticulate noises, growling.
But, before he reached the actors, before Nayan reached
Fillery's side, and while the voice of the girl and of Le-
Vallon still seemed to echo simultaneously in the air, a new
thing happened that changed the scene completely. In these
few brief seconds, indeed, so much was concentrated, and
with such rapidity, that it was small wonder the reports
of individual witnesses differed afterwards, almost as if
each one had seen a separate detail of the crowded picture.
Its incredibility, too, bewildered minds accustomed to
imagined dreams rather than to real action.
LeVallon, at any rate, all agreed, turned with that ease
and swiftness peculiarly his own, caught Nayan again into
the air, and with one arm swung her back across his
shoulder. He moved, then, so irresistibly, with a great
striding rush in the direction of the door into the street,
and so rapidly, that the onlookers once more drew back
instinctively pell mell, tumbling over each other in their
frightened haste.
This, all agreed, had happened. One second they saw
164 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
LeVallon carrying the girl off, the next a flash of intense
and vivid brilliance entered the big studio, flooding all detail
with a blaze of violent light. There was a loud report,
there was a violent shock.
"The Messengers ! Our Messengers ! . . ." The thunder
of LeVallon's cry was audible.
The same instant this dazzling splendour, so sparkling
it was almost painful, became eclipsed again. There was
complete obliteration. Darkness descended like a blow. An
inky blackness reigned. No single thing was visible. There
came a terrific splitting sound.
The effect of overwhelming sudden blackness was natural
enough. In every mind danced still the vivid memory of
that last amazing picture they had seen: Khilkoff, with
alarmed face, breaking violently into the circle where his
daughter, Nayan, swinging from those giant shoulders,
looked back imploringly at Dr. Fillery, who stood motion-
less as though carved in stone, a smile of curious happiness
yet pain upon his features. Yet the figure of LeVallon
dominated. His radiant beauty, his air of superb strength,
his ease, his power, his wild swiftness. Something un-
earthly glowed about him. He looked a god. The extra-
ordinary idea flashed into Fillery's mind that some big
energy as of inter-stellar spaces lay about him, as though
great Sirius called down along his light-years of distance
into the little tumbled Chelsea room.
This was the picture, set one instant in dazzling violet
brilliance, then drowned in blackness, that still hung shin-
ing with intense reality before every mind.
The following confusion had a moment of real and
troubling panic; women screamed, some fell upon their
knees ; men called for light ; various cries were heard ; there
was a general roar :
"To the door, all men to the door! He's controlled!
There's an Elemental in him !" It was Povey's shrill tones
that pierced.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 165
"Strike a match !" shouted Kempster. "The electric light
has fused. Stay where you are. Don't move everybody.
"Lightning," the clear voice of Devonham was heard.
"Keep your heads. It's only a thunderstorm !"
Matches were struck, extinguished, lit again; a patch
of dim light shone here and there upon a throng of huddled
people ; someone found a candle that shed a flickering glare
upon the walls and ceiling, but only made the shadows
chiefly visible. It was an unreal, fantastic scene.
A moment later there descended a hurricane gust of
wind against the building, with splintering glass as though
from a hail of bullets, that extinguished candle and matches,
and plunged the scene again into total darkness. A terrific
clap of thunder, followed immediately by a rushing sound
of rain that poured in a flood upon the floor, completed
the scene of terror and confusion. The huge north window
had blown in.
The consternation was, for some moments, dangerous,
for true panic may become an unmanageable thing, and
this panic was unquestionably real. The superstitious
thread that lies in every human being, stretched and
shivered, beginning to weave its swift, ominous pattern.
The elements dominated the human too completely just
then even for the sense of wonder that was usually so
active in the Society's mental make-up to assert itself .in-
telligently. Most of them lost their heads. All associated
that picture of LeVallon and the girl with this terrific
demonstration of overpowering elemental violence. Povey's
startled cry had given them the lead. The human touch
thus added the flavour of something both personal and
supernatural.
Some stood screaming, whimpering, unable to move;
some were numb ; others cried for help ; not a few remained
on their knees; the name of God was audible here and
there; many collapsed and several women fainted. To one
and all came the realization of that panic fear which dis-
166 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
locates and paralyses. This was a manifestation of elemen-
tal power that had intelligence somewhere driving too
suggestively behind it. ...
It was Devonham and Khilkoff who kept their heads
and saved the situation. The sudden storm was, indeed,
of extreme violence and ferocity; the force of the wind,
with the nearness of the terrible lightning and the con-
sequent volume of the overwhelming thunder, were certainly
bewildering. But a thunderstorm, they began to realize,
was a thunderstorm.
"Everyone stay exactly where he is," suddenly shouted
Khilkoff through the darkness. His voice brought comfort.
"I'll light candles in the inner studio." He did so a moment
later; the faint light was reassuring; a pause in the storm
came to his assistance, the wind had passed, the rain had
ceased, there was no more lightning. With a whispered
word to Devonham, he disappeared through the door into
the passage: "You look after 'em; I must find my girl."
"One by one, now," called Devonham. "Take careful
steps ! Avoid the broken glass !"
Voices answered from dark corners, as the inner room
began to fill; all saw the candle light and came to it by
degrees. "Povey, Kempster, Imson, Father Collins! Each
man bring a lady with him. It's only a thunderstorm. Keep
your heads!"
The smaller room filled gradually, people with white faces
and staring eyes coining, singly or in couples, within the
pale radiance of the flickering candle light. Feet splashed
through pools of water; the furniture, the clothing, were
soaked ; the heat in the air, despite the great broken window,
was stifling. One or two women were helped, some were
carried; there were cries and exclamations, a noise of
splintered glass being trodden on or kicked aside; drinks
were brought for those who had fainted ; order was restored
bit by bit. The collective consciousness resumed gradually
its comforting sway. The herd found strength in contact.
A single cry in a woman's voice "Pan was among
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 167
us! . . ." was instantly smothered, drowned in a chorus
of "Hush ! Hush !" as though a mere name might bring a
repetition of a terror none could bear again.
The entire scene had lasted perhaps five minutes, possibly
less. The violent storm that had hung low over London,
accumulating probably for hours, had dissipated itself in
a single prodigious explosion, and was gone. Through the
gaping north window, torn and shattered, shone the stars.
More candles were brought and lighted, food and drink
followed, a few cuts from broken glass were attended to,
and calm in a measure came back to the battered and shaken
yet thrilled and delighted Prometheans.
But all eyes looked for a couple who were not there ; a
hundred heads turned searching, for in every heart lay one
chief question. Yet, oddly enough, none asked aloud; the
names of Nay an and LeVallon were not spoken audibly;
some touch of awe, it seemed, clung to a memory still burn-
ing in each individual mind ; it was an awe that none would
willingly revive just then. The whole occurrence had been
too devastating, too sudden ; it all had been too real.
There was little talk, nor was there the whispered dis-
cussion even that might have been expected; individual
recovery was slow and hesitating. What had happened
lay still too close for the comfort of detailed comparison
or analysis by word of mouth. With common accord the
matter was avoided. Discussions must wait. It would fill
many days with wonder afterwards. . . .
It was with a sense of general relief, therefore, that the
throng of guests, bedraggled somewhat in appearance, eyes
still bright with traces of uncommon excitement, their
breath uneven and their attitude still nervous, saw the door
into the passage open and frame the figure of their return-
ing host. He held a lighted candle. His bearded face
looked grim, but his slow deep voice was quiet and reassur-
ing he smiled, his words were commonplace.
"You must excuse my daughter," he said firmly, "but
she sends her excuses, and begs to be forgiven for not
168 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
coming to bid you all good-night. The lightning the
electricity has upset her. I have advised her to go to
bed."
A sigh of relief from everybody came in answer. They
were only too glad to take the hint and go.
"The little impromptu act we had prepared for you we
cannot give now," he added, anticipating questions. "The
storm prevented the second part. We must give it another
time instead,"
CHAPTER XIV
HILKOFF, Edward Fillery and Paul Devonham, be-
tween them, it seems, were wise in their generation.
The story spread that the scene in the Studio had been
nothing but a bit of inspired impromptu acting, to which
the coincidence of the storm had lent a touch of unexpected
conviction where, otherwise, all would have ended in a
laugh and a round or two of amused applause.
The spreading of an undesirable story, thus, was to a
great extent prevented, its discussion remaining confined,
chiefly, among the few startled witnesses. Yet tKe Prome-
theans, of course, knew a supernatural occurrence when
they saw one. They were not to be so easily deprived of
their treasured privilege. Thrilled to their marrows, indi-
vidually and collectively, they committed their versions to
writing, drew up reports, compared notes and, generally,
made the feast last as long as possible. It was, moreover,
a semi-sacred feast for them. Its value increased porten-
tously. It bound the Society together with fresh life. It
attracted many new members. Povey and his committee
increased the subscription and announced an entrance fee
in addition.
The various accounts offered by the Members, curious
as these were, may be left aside for the moment, since the
version of the occurrence as given by Edward Fillery comes
first in interest. His report, however, was made only to
himself; he mentioned it in full to no one, not even to
Paul Devonham. He felt unable to share it with any living
being. Only one result of his conclusions he shared openly
enough with his assistant: he withdrew his promise.
Upon certain details, the two men agreed with interest
169
170 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
that everybody in the room, men and women, were on
the qui v'we the moment LeVallon made his entrance. His
appearance struck a note. All were aware of an unusual
presence. Interest and curiosity rose like a vapour, heads
all turned one way as though the same wind blew them,
there was a buzz and murmur of whispered voices, as
though the figure of LeVallon woke into response the same
taut wire in every heart. "Who on earth is that? What
is he?" was legible in a hundred questioning eyes. All, in
a word, were aware of something unaccustomed.
Upon this detail and in support of the Society's claim
to special "psychic" perception, it must be mentioned
Fillery and Devonham were at one. But another detail, too,
found them in agreement. It was not the tempest that
caused the panic ; it was LeVallon himself. Something about
LeVallon had produced the abrupt and singular sense of
panic terror.
Fillery was glad; he was satisfied, at any rate. The
transient, unreal personality called "LeVallon" had dis-
appeared and, as he believed, for ever; a surface appari-
tion after all, it had been educated, superimposed, the result
of imitation and quick learning, a phantom masquerading
as an intelligent human being. It was merely an acquired
surface-self, a physical, almost an automatic intelligence.
The deep nature underneath had now broken out. It was
the sudden irruption of "N. H." that touched the subcon-
scious self of everyone in the room with its strange authentic
shock. "N. H." was in full possession.
Towards this real Self he felt attraction, yearning, even
love. He had felt this from the very beginning. Why,
or what it was, he did not pretend to know as yet. Towards
"N. H." he reacted as towards his own son, as to a comrade,
ancient friend, proved intimate and natural playmate even.
The strange tie was difficult to describe. In himself, though
faint by comparison, lay something akin in sympathy and
understanding. . . . They belonged together in the same
THE BFJGHT MESSENGER 171
unknown region. The girl, of course, belonged there too,
but more completely, more absolutely, even than himself.
He foresaw the risks, the dangers. His heart, with a leap
of joy, accepted the responsibilities.
Unlike Devonham, he had not come that afternoon to
scoff; his smile at the vagaries of what his assistant called
"hysterical psychics" had no bitterness, no contempt. If
their excesses were pathogenic often, he believed with
Lombroso that genius and hysteria draw upon a common
origin sometimes, also that, from among this unstable
material, there emerged on occasions hints of undeniable
value. To the want of balance was chiefly due the in-
effectiveness of these hints. This class, dissatisfied with
present things, kicking over the traces which herd together
the dull normal crowd into the safe but uninteresting com-
monplace, but kicking, of course, too wildly, alone offered
hints of powers that might one day, obedient to laws at
present unknown, become of value to the race. They were
temperamentally open to occasional, if misguided, inspira-
tion, and all inspiration, the evidence overwhelmingly
showed, is due to an intense, but hidden mental activity.
The hidden nine-tenths of the self peeped out here and
there periodically. These people were, at heart, alert to
new ideas. The herd instinct was weak in them. They
were individuals.
Fillery had not come to scoff. His chief purpose on this
particular occasion had been to observe any reactions pro-
duced in LeVallon by the atmosphere of these unbalanced
yet questing minds, and by the introduction to a girl, whose
beauty, physical and moral, he considered far far above
the standard of other women. Iraida Khilkoff, as he saw
her, rose head and shoulders, like some magical flower in
a fairy-tale, beyond her feminine kind.
His hopes had in both respects proved justified. Le-
Vallon was gone. "N. H." had swept up commandingly
into full possession.
172 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
If it is the attitude of mind that interprets details in a
given scene, it is the heart that determines their selection.
Devonham saw collective hallucination, delusion, humbug
useless and undesirable weeds, where his chief saw
strange imperfect growths that might one day become
flowers in a marvellous garden. That this garden blossomed
upon the sunny slopes of a lost Caucasian valley had a
significance he did not shirk. Always he was honest with
himself. It was this symbolic valley he longed to people.
Its radiant loveliness stirred a forgotten music in his heart,
he watched golden bees sipping that wild azalea honey,
of which even the natives may not rob them without the
dangerous delight of exaltation; his nostrils caught the
delicious perfumes, his cheek felt the touch of happy winds
... as he stood by the door with Devonham and LeVallon,
looking round the crowded Chelsea studio.
Aware of this association stirring in his blood, he be-
lieved he had himself well in hand; he knew already in
advance that a spirit moved upon the face of those waters
that were his inmost self; he had that intuitive divination
which anticipates a change of spiritual weather. The wind
was rising, the atmosphere lay prepared, already the flowers
bent their heads one way. All his powers of self-control
might well be called upon before the entertainment ended.
Glancing a moment at LeVallon, tall, erect and poised be-
side him, he was conscious it was an instant of vivid self-
revelation that he steadied himself in doing so. He
borrowed, as it were, something of that poise, that calm
simplicity, that potential energy, that modest confidence.
Some latent power breathed through the great stalwart
figure by his side ; the strength was not his own ; LeVallon
emanated this power unconsciously.
Khilkoff, as described, had then led the youth away to
see the sculpture, Devonham was captured by a Member,
and Fillery found himself alone. He looked about him,
noticing here and there individuals whom he knew. Lady
Gleeson he saw at once on her divan in the corner, with
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 173
her cigarette, her jewels, her glass, her background of
millions through which an indulgent husband floated like
a shadow. His eye rested on her a second only, then passed
in search of something less insignificant. Miss Lance, who
had heard of his books and dared to pretend knowledge
of them, monopolised him for ten minutes. A little tactful
kindness managed her easily, while he watched the door
where LeVallon had disappeared with Khilkoff, and through
which Nayan might any moment now enter. Already his
thoughts framed these two together in a picture; his heart
saw them playing hand in hand among the flowers of the
Hidden Valley, one flying, the other following, a radiance
of sunny fire and a speed of lifting winds about them both,
yet he himself, oddly enough, not far away. He, too, was
somehow with them. While listening with his mind to what
Miss Lance was saying, his heart went out playing with
this splendid pair. . . . He would not lose her finally, it
seemed; some subtle kinship held them together in this
trinity. The heart in him played wild against the mind.
He caught Devonham's eye upon him, and a sudden smile
that Miss Lance fortunately appropriated to herself, ran
over his too thoughtful face. For Devonham's attitude
towards the case, his original Notes, his obvious conceal-
ment of experiences in the Jura Mountains, flashed across
him with a flavour of something half comic, half pathetic.
"With all that knowledge, with all the accumulation of
data, Paul stops short of Wonder !" he thought to himself,
his eyes fixed solemnly upon Miss Lance's face. He remem-
bered Coleridge: "All knowledge begins and ends with
wonder, but the first wonder is the child of ignorance, while
the second wonder is the parent of adoration." A thousand
years, and the dear fellow will still regard adoration as
hysteria ! He chuckled audibly, to his companion's surprise,
since the moment was not appropriate for chuckling.
Making his peace with his neighbour, he presently left
her for a position nearer to the door, Father Collins prd-
viding the opportunity.
174 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Father Collins, as he was called, half affectionately, half
in awe, as of a parent with a cane, was an individual. He
had been evangelical, high church, Anglican, Roman
Catholic, in turn, and finally Buddhist. Believing in reincar-
nation, he did not look for progress in humanity ; the planet
resembled a form at school individuals passed into it and
out of it, but the average of the form remained the same
The fifth form was always the fifth form. Earth's history
showed no advance as a whole, though individuals did. He
looked forward, therefore, to no Utopia, nor shared the
pessimism of the thinkers who despaired of progress.
A man of intense convictions, yet open mind, he was
not ashamed to move. Before the Buddhist phase, he had
been icily agnostic. He thought, but also he felt. He had
vision and intuition ; he had investigated for himself. His
mind was of the imaginative-scientific order. Buddhism,
his latest phase, attracted him because it was "a scientific,
logical system rather than a religion based on revelation."
He belonged eminently to the unstable. He found no rest-
ing place. He came to the meetings of the Society to
listen rather than to talk. His net was far flung, catching
anything and everything in the way of new ideas, experi-
ments, theories, beliefs, especially powers. He tested for
himself, then accepted or discarded. The more extravagant
the theory, the greater its appeal to him. Behind a grim,
even a repulsive ugliness, he hid a heart of milk and honey.
In his face was nobility, yet something slovenly ran through
it like a streak.
He loved his kind and longed to help them to the light.
Although a rolling stone, spiritually, his naked sincerity
won respect. He was composed, however, of several per-
sonalities, and hence, since these often clashed, he was
accused of insincerity too. The essay that lost him his
pulpit and parish, "The Ever-moving Truth, or Proof
Impossible," was the poignant confession of an honest in-
tellect where faith and unbelief came face to face with
facts. The Bishop, naturally, preferred the room of
"Father" Collins to his company.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 175
"I should like you to meet my friend," Fillery mentioned,
after some preliminary talk. "He would interest you. You
might help him possibly." He mentioned a few essential
details. "Perhaps you will call one day you know my
address and make his acquaintance. His mind, owing to
his lonely and isolated youth, is tabula rasa. For the same
reason, a primitive Nature is his Deity."
Father Collins raised his bushy dark eyebrows.
"I took note of him the moment he came in," he replied.
"I was wondering who he was and what! I'll come one
day with pleasure. The innocence on his face surprised
me. Is he may I ask it friend or patient ?"
"Both."
"I see," said the other, without hesitation. He added:
"You are experimenting?"
"Studying. I should value the help the view of a
religious temperament."
Father Collins looked grim to ugliness. The touch of
nobility appeared.
"I know your ideals, Dr. Fillery; I know your work,"
he said gruffly. "In you lies more true religion than in
a thousand bishops. I should trust your treatment of an
unusual case. If," he added slowly, "I can help him, so
much the better." He then looked up suddenly, his manner
as if galvanized : "Unless he can perhaps help us."
The words struck Fillery on the raw, as it were. They
startled him. He stared into the other's eyes. "What
makes you think that? What do you mean exactly?"
Father Collins returned his gaze unflinchingly. He made
an odd reply. "Your friend," he said, "looks to me like
a man who might start a new religion Nature for instance
back to Nature being, in my opinion, always a possible
solution of over-civilization and its degeneracy." The
streak of something slovenly crept into the nobility, smudg-
ing it, so to speak, with a blur.
Dr. Fillery, for a moment, waited, listening with his
heart.
176 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"And find a million followers at once," continued the
other, as though he had not noticed. "His voice, his manner,
his stature, his face, but above all something he brings
with him. Whatever his nature, he's a natural leader. And
a sincere, unselfish leader is what people are asking for
nowadays."
His black bushy eyebrows dropped, darkening the grim,
clean-shaven face. "You noticed, of course you the
women's eyes ?" he mentioned. "It isn't, you know, so much
what a man says, nor entirely his looks, that excite favour
or disfavour with women. It's something he emanates
unconsciously. They can't analyze it, but they never fail
to recognize it."
Fillery moved sideways a little, so that he could watch
the inner studio better. The discernment of his companion
was somewhat unexpected. It disconcerted him. All his
knowledge, all his experience clustered about his mind as
thick as bees, yet he felt unable to select the item he needed.
The sunshine upon his Inner Valley burned a brighter fire.
He saw the flowers glow. The wind ran sweet and magical.
He began to watch himself more closely.
"LeVallon is an interesting being," he admitted finally,
"but you make big deductions surely. A mind like yours,"
he added, "must have its reasons?"
"Power," replied the other promptly; "power. 'The
earlier generations,' said Emerson, 'saw God face to face;
we through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an
original relation to Nature?' Your friend has this original
relation, I feel; he stands close terribly close to Nature.
He brings open spaces even into this bargain sale " He
drew a deep breath. "There is a power about him "
"Perhaps," interrupted the other.
"Not of this earth."
"You mean that literally?"
"Not of this earth quite not of humanity, so to speak,"
repeated Father Collins half irritably, as though his intel-
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 177
ligence had been insulted. "That's the best way I can
describe how it strikes me. Ask one of the women. Ask
Nayan, for instance. Whatever he is, your friend is
elemental."
Like a shock of fire the unusual words ran deep into
Fillery's heart, but, at that same instant a stirring of the
figures beyond the door caught his attention. His main
interest revived. The inner door of the private studio, he
thought, had opened.
"Elemental!" he repeated, his interest torn in two direc-
tions simultaneously. He looked at his companion keenly,
searchingly. "You a man like you does not use such
words " He kept an eye upon the inner studio.
"Without meaning," the other caught him up at once.
"No. I mean it. Nor do I use such words idly to a man
Fillery like you." He stopped. "He has what you
have," came the quick blunt statement; "only in your case
it's indirect, while in his it's direct essential."
They looked at each other. Two minds, packed with
knowledge and softened with experience of their kind,
though from different points of view, met each other fairly.
A bridge existed. It was crossed. Few words were neces-
sary, it seemed. Each understood the other.
"Elemental," repeated Fillery, his pulse quickening half
painfully.
At which instant he knew the inner door had opened.
Nayan had come in. The same instant almost she had
gone out again. So quick, indeed, was the interval be-
tween her appearance and disappearance, that Fillery's
version of what he then witnessed in those few seconds
might have been ascribed by a third person who saw it
with him to his imagination largely. Imaginative, at any
rate, the version was ; whether it was on that account unreal
is another matter. The swift, tiny scene, however, no one
witnessed but himself. Even Devonham, unusually alert
with professional anxiety, missed it ; as did also the watch-
178 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
ful Lady Gleeson, whom jealousy made clairvoyante almost.
Khilkoff and LeVallon, standing sideways to the door, were
equally unaware that it had opened, then quickly closed
again. None saw, apparently, the radiant, lovely outline.
It was a curtained door leading out of the far end of
the inner studio into a passage which had an exit to the
street; Fillery was so placed that he could see it over his
companion's shoulder; Khilkoff, LeVallon and the little
group about them stood in his direct line of sight against
the dark background of the curtain. The light in this far
corner was so dim that Fillery was not aware the curtained
door had swung open until he actually saw the figure of
Nayan Khilkoff framed suddenly in the clear space, the
white passage wall behind her. She wore gloves, hat and
furs, having come, evidently, straight from the street. Ten
seconds, perhaps twenty, she stood there, gazing with a
sudden fixed intensity at LeVallon, whose figure, almost
close enough for touch, was sideways to her, the face in
profile.
She stopped abruptly as though a shock ran through
her. She remained motionless. She stared, an expression
in her eyes as of life momentarily arrested by wild, glorious,
intense surprise. The lips were parted; one gloved hand
still held the swinging curtained door. To Fillery it seemed
as if a flame leaped into her eyes. The entire face lit up.
She seemed spellbound with delight.
This leap of light was the first sign he witnessed. The
same second her eyes lifted a fraction of an inch, changed
their focus, and, gazing past LeVallon, looked straight
across the room into his own.
In his mind at that instant still rang the singular words
of Father Collins; in his heart still hung the picture of
the flowered valley : it was across this atmosphere the eyes
of the girl flashed their message like a stroke of lightning.
It came as a cry, almost a call for help, an audible message
whose syllables fled down the valley, yearning sweet, yet
a tone of poignant farewell within the following wind. It
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 179
was a moment of delicious joy, of exquisite pain, of a
blissful, searching dream beyond this world. ...
He stood spellbound himself a moment. The look in
the girl's big eloquent eyes threatened a cherished dream
that lay too close to his own life. He was aware of collapse,
of ruin; that old peculiar anguish seized him. He remem-
bered her words in Baker Street a few days before : "Please
bring your friend" the accompanying pain they caused.
And now he caught the echo on that following wind along
the distant valley. The cry in her eyes came to him:
"Why O why do you bring this to me? It must take
your place. It must put out You!"
The reasoning and the inspirational self in him knew
this momentary confusion, as the cry fled down the wind.
"O follow, follow
Through the caverns hollow
As the song floats, thou pursue
Where the wild bee never flew . . ."
The curtained door swung to again; the face and figure
were no longer there; Nayan had withdrawn quickly,
noticed by none but himself. She had gone up to make
herself ready for her father's guests ; in a few minutes she
would come down again to play hostess as her custom
was. ... It was so ordinary. It was so dislocating. . . .
For at that moment it seemed as if all the feminine forces
of the universe, whatever these may be, focused in her,
and poured against him their concentrated stream to allure,
enchant, subdue. He trembled. He remembered Devon-
ham's admission of the panic sense.
"It's the air," said a voice beside him, "all this tobacco
smoke and scent, and no ventilation."
Father Collins was speaking, only he had completely for-
gotten that Father Collins was in the world. The steadying
hand upon his arm made him realize that he had swayed a
moment.
180 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"The perfume chiefly," the voice continued. "All this
cheap nasty stuff these women use. It's enough to sicken
any healthy man. Nobody knows his own smell, they say."
He laughed a little.
Collins was tactful. He talked on easily of nothing in
particular, so that his companion might let the occasion
slip, or comment on it, as he wished.
"Worse than incense." Fillery gave him the clue per-
haps intentionally, certainly with gratitude. He made an
effort. He found control. "It intoxicates the imagination,
doesn't it?" That note of sweet farewell still hung with
enchanting sadness in his brain. He still saw those yearn-
ing eyes. He heard that cry. And yet the conflict in his
nature bewildered him as though he found two persons
in him, one weeping while the other sang.
Father Collins smiled, and Fillery then knew that he,
too, had seen the girl framed in the doorway, intercepted
the glance as well. No shadow of resentment crossed his
heart as he heard him add: "She, too, perhaps belongs
elsewhere." The phrase, however, brought to his own
personal dream the conviction of another understanding
mind. "As you yourself do, too," was added in a thrilling
whisper suddenly.
Fillery turned with a start to meet his eye. "But
where?"
"That is your problem," said Father Collins promptly.
"You are the expert even though you think mistakenly
that your heart is robbed." His voice held the sympathy
and tenderness of a woman taught by suffering. The
nobility was in his face again, untarnished now. His words,
his tone, his manner caught Fillery in amazement. It did
not surprise him that Father Collins had been quick enough
to understand, but it did surprise him that a man so
entangled in one formal creed after another, so netted by
the conventional thought of various religious Systems, and
therefore stuffed with old, rigid, commonplace ideas it
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 181
did, indeed surprise him to feel this sudden atmosphere
of vision and prophecy that abruptly shone about him. The
extravagant, fantastic side of the man he had forgotten.
"Where?" he repeated, gazing at him. "Where, indeed?"
"Where the wild bee never flew . . . perhaps!"
Father Collins's eyebrows shot up as though worked by
artificial springs. His eyes, changing extraordinarily,
turned very keen. He seemed several persons at once. He
looked like contradictory description a spiritual Jesuit.
The ugly mouth thank Heaven, thought Fillery snowed
lines of hidden humour. His sanity, at any rate, was
unquestioned. Father Collins watched the planet with his
soul, not with his brain alone. But which of his many
personalities was now in the ascendancy, no man, least of
all himself, could tell. His companion, the expert in him
automatically aware of the simultaneous irruption and dis-
ruption, waited almost professionally for any outburst that
might follow. "Arcades ambo," he reflected, making a stern
attempt to keep his balance.
"The subconscious, remember, doesn't explain every-
thing," came the words. "Not everything," he added with
emphasis. "As with heredity" he looked keenly half
humorously, half sympathetically at the doctor "there are
gaps and lapses. The recent upheaval has been more than
an inter-tribal war. It was a planetary event. It has shaken
our nature fundamentally, radically. The human mind has
been shocked, broken, dislocated. The prevalent hysteria
is not an ordinary hysteria, nor are the new powers per-
haps quite ordinary either."
"Mental history repeats itself," Fillery put in, now more
master of himself again. "Unbalance has always followed
upheaval. The removal of known, familiar foundations
always lets in extravagance of wildest dissatisfaction, search
and question."
"Upheaval of this kind," rejoined the other gravely,
"there has never been since human beings walked the earth.
182 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Our fabulous old world trembles in the balance." And,
as he said it, the dreamer shone in the light below the big,
black eyebrows, noticed quickly by his companion. "Old
ideals have been smashed beyond recovery. The gods men
knew have been killed, like Tommy, in the trenches. The
past is likewise dead, its dreams of progress buried with
it by a Black Maria. The human mind and heart stand
everywhere empty and bereft, while their hungry and
unanswered questions search the stars for something new."
"Well, well," said Fillery gently, half stirred, half amused
by the odd language. "You may be right. But mental
history has always shown a desire for something new after
each separate collapse. Signs and wonders are a recurrent
hunger, remember. In the days of Abraham, of Paul, of
Moses it was the same."
"Questions to-day," replied the other, "are based on an
immense accumulated knowledge unknown to Moses or to
Abraham's time. The phenomenon, I grant you, is the same,
but the shock, the dislocation, the shattering upheaval
comes in the twentieth century upon minds grounded in
deep scientific wisdom. It was formerly a shock to the
superstitious ignorance of intuitive feeling merely. To-day
it is organized scientific knowledge that meets the earth-
quake."
"You mentioned gaps and lapses," said Fillery, deeply
interested, but still half professionally, perhaps, in
spite of his preoccupations. "You think, perhaps, those
gaps ?" One eye watched the inner studio. The
unstable in him gained more and more the upper hand.
"I mean," replied Father Collins, now fairly launched
upon his secret hobby, evidently his qualification for mem-
bership in the Society, "I mean, Edward Fillery, that the
time is ripe, if ever, for a new revelation. If Man is the
only type of being in the universe, well and good. We see
his finish plainly, for the war has shown that progress is a
myth. Man remains, in spite of all conceivable scientific
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 183
knowledge, a savage, of low degree, irredeemable, and in-
tellect, as a reconstructive force, but of small account."
"It seems so, I admit."
"But if" Father Collins said it as calmly as though
he spoke of some new food or hygienic treatment merely
"if mankind is not the only life in the universe, if, for
instance, there exist and why not? other evolutionary
systems besides our own somewhat trumpery type other
schemes and other beings perhaps parallel, perhaps quite
different perhaps in more direct contact with the sources
of life a purer emanation, so to say "
He hesitated, realizing perhaps that in speaking to a
man of Edward Fillery's standing he must choose his words,
or at least present his case convincingly, while aware that
his inability to do so made him only more extravagant and
incoherent.
"Yes, quite so," Fillery helped him, noting all the time
the suppressed intensity, the half -concealed conviction of
an idee fixe behind the calmness, while the balance of his
own attention remained concentrated on the group about
LeVallon. "If, as you suggest, there are other types of
life " He spoke encouragingly. He had noticed the
slovenly streak spread and widen, breaking down, as it
were, the structure of the face. He was aware also of the
increasing insecurity in himself.
"Now is the moment," cried the other; "now is the time
for their appearance."
He turned as though he had hit a target unexpectedly.
"Now," he repeated, "is the opportunity for their manifes-
tation. The human mind lies open everywhere. It is blank,
receptive, ready. On all sides it waits ready and inviting.
The gaps are provided. If there is any other life, it should
break through and come among us now!"
Fillery, startled, withdrew for the first time his atten-
tion from that inner room. With keen eyes he gazed at
his companion. With an abrupt, unpleasant shock it oc-
184 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
curred to him that all he heard was borrowed, filched, stolen
out of his own mind. Before words came to him, the other
spoke :
"Your friend," he mentioned quietly, but with intentional
significance, "and patient."
"LeVallon !"
But it was at this moment that Nayan Khilkoff, entering
again without her hat and furs, had moved straight to the
piano, seated herself, and began to sing.
CHAPTER XV
TO retail the following scene as Dr. Fillery saw it in
detail is not necessary, the sequence of acts, of
physical events being already known. The reactions of his
heart and mind, however, have importance. What he felt,
thought, hoped and feared, what he believed as well, his
point of view in a word, remain essential.
Edward Fillery, being what he was, witnessed it from
his own individual angle; his mind, with his heredity, his
soul, with its mysterious background, these held the glasses
to his eyes, adjusting, as with a Zeiss instrument, each eye
separately. In his case the analyst and thinker checked
the unstable dreamer with acute exactitude. This was his
special gift. He studied himself best while studying others.
His sight, moreover, was exceptionally keen, his glasses of
consummate workmanship. He saw, it seems, considerably
beyond the normal range. He believed, at least, that he
did so.
He saw, for instance, that the girl, while her fingers
ran over the keys before she sang, searched the room and
found LeVallon in a second. Following her rapid glance,
he took in the picture that she also saw LeVallon, coffee
cup in hand, before Lady Gleeson languishing on the divan,
and Devonham just beside them. LeVallon was obviously
unaware of Lady Gleeson's presence ; he had forgotten her
existence. Devonham, a floor-walker with nothing particular
to do at the moment, looked uncomfortable and ill at ease,
scared a little, fearing a scene, a possible outbreak even.
The meaning of the group was easily read. The girl herself,
undoubtedly, read it clearly too.
185
,186 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
This flashed upon the cinema screen, and Fillery divined
it without the help of tedious letterpress.
The same instant he was aware that the girl and LeVallon
looked for the first time straight into each other's faces, and
that both seemed simultaneously caught into the air as
though a star had lifted them. Not even a question lay in
their clear eyes. It was an instantaneous understanding,
so complete and perfect that the expression of happy sur-
prise was too convicing to be missed even by the slow-witted
Lady Gleeson. Vanity usually delays intelligence, and her
vanity was abnormal. But she saw the expression on the
two faces, and interpreted it aright. Fillery noticed that
she squirmed; she would presently, he felt positive, dis-
appear. Before the singing ended he had seen her slink
away.
The song began. He had heard it before, "The Vagrant's
Epitaph," sung by the same clear, sweet voice, had felt
his heart stirred by the true simple feeling she put into it.
He knew every word and every bar; the music was her
own. He loved it. Both words and music awoke in him
invariably a picture of his own lost valley, a physical desire
to be over the hills and far away with the homeless liberty
of winds and stars and waters, and at the same time, its
spiritual equivalent a yearning that the Race should dis-
cover the immense fair region of its greater hidden self
and enjoy its new powers without restraint. All this was
familiar to him. But now, as she sang, there came another,
deeper meaning that sublimated the essential spirit of it,
lifting it out of the known ditch of space and time. Never
yet had he heard such yearning passion, such untold desire
in her voice. The physical vagrancy changed subtly, ex-
quisitely, to a symbol of a vaster meaning a spiritual
vagrancy that suddenly captured him in bitter pain. "Love
could not hold him, Duty forged no chain" as he listened
to the sweetness, struck him between the joints of armour
he had not realized before was so insecurely bound about
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 187
him. The anguish of lonely souls, alien among their kind,
hungry for companionship they might not find, unclothed,
uncared for, desired of none and understanding none
this rose tumultuously in his blood. "The wide seas and
the mountains called him . . ." the words and music pierced
him like a flame. "Revel might hold him for a little
space . . ." her voice made it sound like a description of
man's brief moment on the whirling planet, tasting adven-
ture with men and women, playing a moment with love
and hope and fear, till, "turning past the laughter and the
lamps," he heard that "other summons at the door."
This bigger version, this deeper meaning, caught at him
with power as he heard the song in the sweet, familiar voice,
and realized in a flash that what he felt faintly LeVallon
felt terrifically. His own detachment was a pose, a shadow,
at best a bodiless yearning; in LeVallon it was a reality
of consuming fire. Also it was an explanation of the girl's
own singular aloofness from the world of admiring men.
Both belonged, as Father Collins put it, "elsewhere."
He watched them. LeVallon's eyes, he saw, remained
fixed and motionless on the singer; her own did not leave
the notes for a single moment ; the words and music poured
into the room like a shower of dancing silver. The per-
sonality of the girl flowed out with them to meet the newly-
found companion they addressed. An extraordinary thing
then happened : to Fillery it almost seemed that there formed
then and there between them a new vehicle as it were, a
body that gave expression to their own great secret. Some-
thing in each of them, unable to manifest through their
minds, their brains, their earthly bodies, formed for itself
an elastic subtle vehicle, using the sound, the words, the
feeling for this purpose and as literally as a human spirit
uses the familiar physical body for its manifestation.
The experience was amazing, but it was real. He watched
it carefully. In the room about him, formed on the waves
of this sweet singing, shaped by feeling that found normally
188 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
no other expression, inspired by emotions, yearnings, desires
alien to their normal kind, these two created between them
a new vehicle or body that could and did express all this.
They heard that "other summons at the door. . . ." And
they were off.
Yet he, too, heard the summons, and in the depths of
his being he answered to it. His essential weakness, wearing
the guise of strength, rose naked. . . .
These thoughts and feelings lay unexpressed, perhaps
too deep actually, too remote from any experience he
had yet known, to find actual words, even in his mind.
What did find expression, in thought at any rate, was that,
before his very eyes, he witnessed the transfiguring change
come over Nayan. Like some flower that has been growing
in the shade, then meets the flood of sunshine for the first
time, she knew a fresh tide of life sweep over her entire
being. She seemed to blossom, breaking almost into flower
and fruit before his very eyes, as though sun and wind
brought her into a sudden bloom of exquisite maturity. He
was aware of rich, deep purple, the faint gold of fruits and
flowers, the creamy softness of a rose, the amber of wild
grapes bathed in sparkling dew. The luscious promise of
the Spring matured about her whole presentment into full
summer glory. And it was the sun and wind of LeVallon's
enigmatic, stimulating presence close to her that caused the
miracle. The essential flower of her life poured forth to
meet his own, as he had always felt it must. LeVallon's
was the mighty wind that lifted her, was the sun in whose
heat she basked, expanded, soared. She experienced a
strange increase of her natural vitality and being. Her
consciousness knew an abrupt intensification.
The signs, in that brief moment, were as clear to Fillery's
divining heart as though he read them in black printed
letters on a page of whitest paper. He knew the cipher and
the code. He watched the signals flash. They had not even
spoken, yet the relationship was established beyond doubt.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 189
He witnessed the first exchange; the wireless message of
joy and sympathy that flashed he intercepted.
Through his extremely rapid mind, as he watched, poured
memories, reflections, judgments in concentrated form, yet
calmly, steadily, though against a background of deep and
troubled emotion. There seemed actually a disruption of
his personality. Father Collins, standing beside him, divined
nothing, he believed, of his agitation, standing, mere figure
of a man, listening to the music with attentive pleasure;
at least, he gave no outward sign. . . .
The song drew to its close. Once Nayan raised her eyes,
instantly finding those of LeVallon across the room, then
shifting again for a fleeting second with a rapidly changing
focus to his own. He met them without a quiver ; he caught
again her tender, searching question; he sent no answer
back.
In his own heart burned, however, a score of questions
that beat against his soul for answers. What was it that
each had found thus intuitively within the other? Was it
her maternal instinct only that was reached as with all other
men hitherto, was it at last the woman in her that leaped
towards its own divine, creative sun, or was it that hidden,
nameless aspect of her which had never yet found a vehicle
for manifestation among her own kind and had therefore
remained hitherto unexpressed bodiless?
The answer to this he found easily enough. No jealousy
stirred ; pain for himself had been long ago uprooted. Yet
pain of a kind he felt. Would LeVallon injure, drag her
down, bring suffering, perhaps of an atrocious sort, into
her hitherto so innocent life? Was she yet qualified to
withstand the fierce fire, the rushing wind, that the full
force of his strange nature must bring to bear upon her?
His questions went prophesying, flying like swift birds
to such great distances that no audible answers could return.
His pain, at any rate, chiefly was for her. He divined that
she was frightened, yet exhilarated, before the unexpected
190 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
apparition of an unusual presence, Accustomed to smaller
jets of admiration from smaller men, this deep flood over-
whelmed her. This motionless figure watching her among
the shadows, listening to her singing, devouring her beauty
with an innocence, power, worship she had never yet en-
countered could she, Fillery asked himself, withstand its
elemental flood and not be broken by its waves ?
For at the back of all his questions, haunting his prophe-
cies, filling his hopes and fears with substance, stood one
outstanding certainty:
The motionless figure in the shadows was not LeVallon.
It was "N. H."
The thing he had expected had now happened. Instinc-
tively he turned to find his colleague.
For what followed, Fillery, of course, was as unprepared
as anyone. In some way, difficult to describe, the whole
thing had a strangely natural, almost an inevitable touch.
The exaggeration that others felt he was not conscious of.
He never, for a single moment, lost his head. The wonder
of the elemental violence appealed and stimulated without
once touching the sense of fear, much less of panic, in him.
Searching for Devonham's familiar figure, he found it
in the seat that Lady Gleeson had vacated shortly before,
but the face turned away towards the inner room, so that
it was not possible to catch his eye. It was an attentive,
critical, almost anxious expression his chief surprised, and
while a faint smile perhaps flitted across his own mouth,
he became aware that Father Collins he had again com-
pletely forgotten his proximity was staring with a curious
intentness at him. The same instant the song came to an
end. Into the brief pause of a second before the applause
burst forth, Father Collins's voice was suddenly audible in
his ear:
"LeVallon's gone," Fillery was saying to himself, " 'N.
H.' is in control," when his neighbour's words broke in.
The two sentences were simultaneously in his mind:
"A man in his own place is the Ruler of his Fate!"
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 191
And Fillery's astonishment was only equalled by the fact
that the grim face was soft with sympathy, and that in the
eyes shone moisture that was close to tears. Before he
could reply, however, the applause burst forth, making an
uproar against which no voice could possibly contend. The
subsequent events, following so swiftly, made rejoinder
equally out of the question, nor did he see Father Collins
again that evening.
These Fillery witnessed much as already described through
Devonham's eyes. The storm, the panic took place as told.
Yet a detail here and there belong to Fillery's version, for
they were a part of his own being. He had, for instance,
a warning that something was about to happen, although
warning seems not quite the faithful word. He saw the
Valley for one fleeting second, the three familiar figures,
Nayan, "N. H.," himself, flying through the bright sunshine
before a wind that stirred a million flowers. In the farthest
possible background of his mind it shone an instant. The
shutter dropped again, it vanished.
Yet enough to set him on the alert. Into the air about
him, into his heart as well, fell an exhilarating and immense
refreshment. It rose, as it were, from the most deeply
submerged portion of his own hidden being, now stirred,
even actually summoned, into activity.
The shutter meanwhile rose and fell and rose again; the
Valley reappeared and vanished, then reappeared again.
For the truth came smashing against him smashing his
being open, and bursting the doors of his carefully in-
structed, carefully guarded nature. The doors flung from
their hinges and a blinding light poured in and flooded the
strangest possible hidden corners.
He saw what followed with an accuracy of observation
impossible to anyone else, with an intimate sympathy the
others could not feel because he himself took part in the
entire scene. But the scene, for him, was not the Chelsea
studio with its tobacco smoke and perfume, it was the
Caucasian valley whence his own blood derived. Clean,
192 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
fragrant winds swept past him across mighty space. The
walls melted into distances of forest and mountain peaks,
the ceiling was a dome of stainless blue, the floor ran deep
in flowers. A drenching sunshine of crystal purity bathed
the world. It was across bright emerald turf that he saw
"X. H." dance forward like a wind of power, cry with a
joyful resonant voice to the radiant girl who stood laughing,
half hiding, yet at the same time beckoning, that she should
fly with him. He caught and lifted her, her hair, the white-
ness of her skin flashing in the sun like some marvellous
bird in the act of taking wing, for before he had touched her
she leapt through the air to meet his outstretched arms.
Yet one hand, one silvery arm, waved towards himself,
towards Fillery; their fingers met and clasped; the three
of them, three dancing, free and joyful figures, fled like
the wind across the enormous mountains, but fled, he knew
beyond all question home.
He saw this in the space of those few seconds in which
Nayan was swung over the youth's shoulders beside the
piano. The two scenes ran parallel, as it were, before his
eyes, outer and inner sight keeping equal pace together.
His balance and judgment here were never once disturbed.
In the studio: he had just introduced LeVallon to the girl
and the latter had caught her up. In the valley: she had
leapt into his arms and the three of them were off.
It was this inner interpretation, keeping always level pace
with what was happening outwardly, that furnished Fillery
with the hint of an astounding explanation. The figure
in the valley, it flashed to him, was, of course, "N. H."
in all his natural splendour, but a figure unknown surely
to all records of humanity as such. Here danced and sang
a happy radiant being, by whom the limitations of the
human species were not experienced, even if the species were
familiar to him at all. A being from another system, an-
other evolution, an elemental being, whose ideal, develop-
ment, mode of existence, were not those of men and women.
"N. H." was not a human being, a human soul, a human
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 193
spirit He belonged elsewhere and otherwise. Under the
guise of LeVallon he had drifted in. He inhabited LeVal-
lon's frame.
In the Studio, at this instant, Fillery heard him using
the singular words already noted, and in the Studio they
sounded, indeed, senseless, foolish, even mad. It was, he
realized, an attempt to stammer in human language some
meaning that lay beyond, outside it. In the Valley, however,
and at the same moment, they sounded natural and true.
The evolutionary system to which "N. H." belonged, from
which he had in some as yet unknown manner passed into
humanity, but to which, though almost entirely forgotten,
he yearned with his whole being to return this other system
had, it seemed, its own conditions, its own methods of
advance, its ideals and its duties. Were, then, its inhabitants
this flashed upon him in the delicious wind and sunshine
the workers in what men call the natural kingdoms, the
builders of form and structure, the directing powers that
expressed themselves through the elemental energies every-
where behind the laws of Nature? Was this their tireless
and wondrous service in the planet, in the universe itself?
"N. H." called the girl to service, not to personal love.
Alone, cut off from his own kind, alien and derelict amid
the conditions of a humanity strange, perhaps unknown
to him, he sought companionship where he could. Drawn
instinctively to the more impersonal types, such as Fillery
and the girl, he felt there the nearest approach to what he
recognized as his own kind: their ideal of selfless service
was a beacon that he understood: he would return to his
own kingdom, carrying them both with him. From some-
where, at any rate, this all flashed into his too willing
mind. . . .
At which second precisely in Fillery's valley-vision, Khil-
koff entered, and yet before he could take action the
lightning struck and the sudden explosion of the ferocious
storm blackened out both the outer and the inner scene.
The shock of elemental violence, the astounding revelation
194 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
as well that an entirely new type had possibly come within
his ken, this, combined with the emotional disturbance
caused by the change produced in Nayan, seemed enough
to upset the equilibrium of even the most balanced mind.
The darkness added its touch of helplessness besides. Yet
Fillery never for a moment lost his head. Two natures in
him, cause of his radical instability, merged for a moment
in amazing harmony. The panic now dominating all about
him seemed so small a thing compared to the shattering
discovery life had just offered to him. Across it, finding
his way past kneeling women and shrieking girls, drenched
to the skin by the flood of entering rain, moving over
splintered glass, he found the figure he sought, as though
by some instinctive sympathy. They came together in the
darkness. Their hands met easily. A moment later they
were in the street, and "N. H.'s" instinctive terror amid the
sheets of falling water, an element hostile to his own natural
fire, made it a simple matter to get him home in Lady
Gleeson's motor car.
CHAPTER XVI
WHEN relative order had been restored, Devonham
realized, of course, that his colleague had cleverly
spirited away their "patient"; also that the sculptor had
carried off his daughter. Relieved to escape from the at-
mosphere of what he considered collective hysteria, he had
borrowed mackintosh and umbrella, and declining several
offers of a lift, had walked the four miles to his house in
the rain and wind. The exercise helped to work off the
emotion in him; his mind cleared healthily; personal bias
gave way to honest and unprejudiced reflection; there was
much that interested him deeply, at the same time puzzled
and bewildered him beyond anything he had yet experienced.
He reached the house with a mind steady if unsatisfied;
but the emotions caused by prejudice had gone. His main
anxiety centred about his chief.
He was glad to notice a light in an upper window, for
it meant, he hoped, that LeVallon was now safely home.
While his latchkey sought its hole, however, this light was
extinguished, and when the door opened, it was Fillery
himself who greeted him, a finger on his lips.
"Quietly !" he whispered. "I've just got him to bed and
put his light out. He's asleep already." Paul noticed his
manner instantly its happiness. There was a glow of
mysterious joy and wonder in his atmosphere that made the
other hostile at once.
They went together towards that inner room where so
often together they had already talked both moon and sun
to bed. Cold food lay on the table, and while they satisfied
their hunger, the rain outside poured down with a steady
drenching sound. The wind had dropped. The suburb
lay silent and deserted. It was long past midnight. The
195
196 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
house was very still, only the occasional step of a night-
nurse audible in the passages and rooms upstairs. They
would not be disturbed.
"You got him home all right, then?" Paul asked presently,
keeping his voice low.
He had been observing his friend closely; the evident
pleasure and satisfaction in the face annoyed him ; the light
in the eyes at the same time profoundly troubled him. Not
only did he love his chief for himself, he set high value
on his work as well. It would be deplorable, a tragedy,
if judgment were destroyed by personal bias and desire.
He felt uneasy and distressed.
Fillery nodded, then gave an account of what had hap-
pened, but obviously an account of outward events merely ;
he did not wish, evidently, to argue or explain. The strong,
rugged face was lit up, the eyes were shining; some inner
enthusiasm pervaded his whole being. Evidently he felt
very sure of something something that both pleased and
stimulated him.
His account of what had happened was brief enough,
little more than a statement of the facts.
Finding himself close to LeVallon when the darkness
came, he had kept hold of him and hurried him out of the
house at once. The sudden blackness, it seemed, had made
LeVallon quiet again, though he kept asking excitedly for
the girl. When assured that he would soon see her, he
became obedient as a lamb. The absence of light apparently
had a calming influence. They found, of course, no taxis,
but commandeered the first available private car, Fillery
using the authoritative influence of his name. And it was
Lady Gleeson's car, Lady Gleeson herself inside it. She
had thought things over, put two and two together, and
had come back. Her car might be of use. It was. For
the rain was falling in sheets and bucketfuls, the road had
become a river of water, and Fillery's automobile, ordered
for an hour later, had not put in an appearance. It was
the rain that saved the situation. . . .
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 197
An exasperated expression crossed Devonham's face as
he heard this detail emphasized. He had meant to listen
without interruption. The enigmatical reference to the rain
proved too much for him.
"Why 'the rain'? What d'you mean exactly, Edward?"
"Water," was the reply, made in a significant tone that
further annoyed his listener's sense of judgment. "You
remember the Channel, surely! Water and fire mutually
destroy each other. They are hostile elements."
There was a look almost of amusement on his face as
he said it. Devonham kept a tight hold upon his tongue.
It was not impatience or surprise he felt, though both were
strong; it was perhaps sorrow.
"And so Lady Gleeson drove you home?"
He waited with devouring interest for further details.
The throng of questions, criticisms and emotions surging
in him he repressed with admirable restraint.
Lady Gleeson, yes, had driven the party home. Fillery
made her sit on the back seat alone, while he occupied the
front one, LeVallon beside him, but as far back among the
deep cushions as possible. The doctor held his hand. At
any other time, Devonham could have laughed ; but he saw
no comedy now. Lady Gleeson, it seemed, was awed by
the seriousness of the "Chief," whom, even at the best of
times, she feared a little. Her vanity, however, persuaded
her evidently that she was somehow the centre of interest.
Yet Devonham, as he listened, had difficulty in persuad-
ing himself that he was in the twentieth century, and that
the man who spoke was his colleague and a man of the day
as well.
"LeVallon talked little, and that little to himself or to
me. He seemed unaware that a third person was present
at all. Though quiet enough, there was suppressed ve-
hemence still about him. He said various things: that 'she
belonged to us/ for instance; that he 'knew his own'; that
she was 'filled with fire in exile'; and that he would 'take
her back.' Also that I, too, must go with them both. He
198 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
often mentioned the sun, saying more than once that the
sun had 'sent its messengers/ Obviously, it was not the
ordinary sun he referred to, but some source of central
heat and fire he seems aware of "
"You, I suppose, Edward," put in his listener quickly,
"said nothing to encourage all this? Nothing that could
suggest or stimulate?"
Fillery ignored, even if he noticed, the tone of the ques-
tion. "I kept silence rather. I said very little. I let him
talk. I had to keep an eye on the woman, too."
"You certainly had your hands full a dual personality
and a nymphomaniac."
"She helped me, without knowing it. All he said about
the girl, she evidently took to herself. When he begged
me to keep the water out, she drew the window up the
last half-inch. . . . The water frightened him; she was
sympathetic, and her sympathy seemed to reach him, though
I doubt if he was aware of her presence at all until the
last minute almost "
"And 'at the last minute' ?"
"She leaned forward suddenly and took both his hands.
I had let go of the one I held and was just about to open
the door, when I heard her say excitedly that I must let
her come and see him, or that he must call on her; she
was sure she could help him; he must tell her every-
thing. ... I turned to look. . . . LeVallon, startled into
what I believe was his first consciousness of her presence,
stared into her eyes, and leaned forward among his cushions
a little, so that their faces were close together. Before I
could interfere, she had flung her bare arms about his neck
and kissed him. She then sat back again, turning to me,
and repeating again and again that he needed a woman's
care and that she must help and mother him. She was
excited, but she knew what she was saying. She showed
neither shame nor the least confusion. She tasted of
course with her it cannot last a bigger world. She was
most determined."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 199
"His reaction?" inquired Devonham, amused in spite of
his graver emotions of uneasiness and exasperation.
"None whatever. I scarcely think he realized he had
been kissed. His interest was so entirely elsewhere. I
saw his face a moment among the white ermine, the bare
arms and jewels that enveloped him." Fillery frowned
faintly. "The car had almost stopped. Lady Gleeson was
leaning back again. He looked at me, and his voice was
intense and eager: 'Dear Fillery,' he said, 'we have found
each other, I have found her. She knows, she remembers
the way back. Here we can do so little.'
"Lady Gleeson, however, had interpreted the words in
another way.
" 'I'll come to-morrow to see you,' she said at once in-
tensely. 'You must let me come,' the last words addressed
to me, of course."
The two men looked at one another a moment in silence,
and for the first time during the conversation they ex-
changed a smile. . . .
"I got him to bed," Fillery concluded. "In ten minutes
he was sound asleep." And his eyes indicated the room
overhead.
He leaned back, and quietly began to fill his pipe. The
account was over.
As though a great spring suddenly released him, Paul
Devonham stood up. His untidy hair hung wild, his glasses
were crooked on his big nose, his tie askew. His whole
manner bristled with accumulated challenge and disagree-
ment.
"Who?" he cried. "Who? Edward, I ask you?"
His colleague, yet knowing exactly what he meant, looked
up questioningly. He looked him full in the face.
"Hush !" he said quietly. "You'll wake him."
He gazed with happy penetrating eyes at his companion.
"Paul," he added gently, "do you really mean it? Have
you still the faintest doubt?"
The moment had drama in it of unusual kind. The con-
200 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
flict between these two honest and unselfish minds was
vital. The moment, too, was chosen, the place as well
this small, quiet room in a commonplace suburb of the
greatest city on the planet, drenched by earthly rain and
battered by earthly wind from the heart of an equinoctial
storm ; the mighty universe outside, breaking with wondrous,
incredible impossibilities upon a mind that listened and a
mind that could not hear ; and upstairs, separated from them
by a few carpenter's boards, an assortment of "souls,"
either derelict and ruined, or gifted super-normally, masters
of space and time perhaps, yet all waiting to be healed by
the best knowledge known to the race and one among
them, about whom the conflict raged . . . sound asleep . . .
while wind and water stormed, while lightning fires lit the
distant horizons, while the great sun lay hidden, and dark-
ness crept soundlessly to and fro. . . .
"Have you still the slightest doubt, Paul?" repeated
Fillery. "You know the evidence. You have an open
mind."
Then Devonham, still standing over his Chief, let out
the storm that had accumulated in him over-long. He
talked like a book. He talked like several books. It seemed
almost that he distrusted his own personal judgment.
"Edward," he began solemnly not knowing that he
quoted "you, above all men, understand the lower recesses
of the human heart, that gloomy, gigantic oubliette in which
our million ancestors writhe together inextricably, and each
man's planetary past is buried alive "
Fillery nodded quietly his acquiescence.
"You, of all men, know our packed, limitless subter-
ranean life," Devonham went on, "and its impenetrable
depths. You understand telepathy, 'extended telepathy' as
well, and how a given mind may tap not only forgotten
individual memories, but memories of his family, his race,
even planetary memories into the bargain, the memory, in
fact, of every being that ever lived, right down to Adam,
if you will "
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 201
"Agreed," murmured the other, listening patiently, while
he puffed his pipe and heard the rain and wind "I know
all that. I know it, at any rate, as a possible theory."
"You also know," continued Devonham in a slightly less
strident tone, "your own forgive me, Edward your own
idiosyncrasies, your weaknesses, your dynamic accumulated
repressions, your strange physical heritage and spiritual
I repeat the phrase your spiritual vagrancies towards
towards " He broke off suddenly, unable to find the
words he wanted.
"I'm illegitimate, born of a pagan passion,' mentioned
the other calmly. "In that sense, if you like, I have in me
a 'complex' against the race, against humanity as such."
He smiled patiently, and it was the patience, the evident
conviction of superiority that exasperated his cautious,
accurate colleague.
"If I love humanity, I also tolerate it perhaps, for I try
to heal it," added Fillery. "But, believe me, Paul, I do
not lose my scientific judgment"
"Edward," burst out the other, "how can you think it
possible, then that he is other than the result of tendencies
transmitted by his mad parents, or acquired from Mason,
who taught him all he knows, or if you will that he has
these hysterical faculties supernormal as we may call them
which tap some racial, even, if you will, some planetary
past "
He again broke off, unable to express his whole thought,
his entire emotion, in a few words.
"I accept all that," said Fillery, still calmly, quietly, "but
perhaps now in the interest of truth" his tone was grave,
his words obviously chosen carefully "if now I feel it
necessary to go beyond it ! My strange heritage," he added,
"is even possibly a help and guide. How," he asked, a trace
of passion for the first time visible in his manner, "shall
we venture how decide for we are not wholly ignorant,
you and I between what is possible and impossible? Is
this trivial planet, then," he asked, his voice rising suddenly,
ominously perhaps, "our sole criterion? Dare we not ven-
202 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
ture beyond a little? The scientific mind should be the
last to dogmatize as to the possibilities of this life of
ours. . . ."
The authority of chief, the old tie of respectful and affec-
tionate friendship, the admiring wonder that pertained to
a daring speculator who had often proved himself right in
face of violent opposition all these affected Devonham.
He did not weaken, but for an instant he knew, perhaps,
the existence of a vast, incredible horizon in his friend's
mind, though one he dared not contemplate. Possibly, he
understood in this passing moment a huger world, a new
outlook that scorned limit, though yet an outlook that his
accurate, smaller spirit shrank from.
He found, at any rate, his own words futile. "You
remember," he offered " 'We need only suppose the con-
tinuity of our own consciousness with a mother sea, to
allow for exceptional waves occasionally pouring over the
dam.' "
"Good, yes," said Fillery. "But that 'mother sea,' what
may it not include? Dare we set limits to it?"
And, as he said it, Fillery, emotion visible in him, rose
suddenly from his chair. He stood up and faced his
colleague.
"Let us come to the point," he said in a clear, steady
voice. "It all lies doesn't it? in that question you
asked "
"Who?" came at once from Devonham's lips, as he stood,
looking oddly stiff and rigid opposite his Chief. There was
a touch of defiance in his tone. "Who?" He repeated his
original question.
No pause intervened. Fillery's reply came sharp and
firm:
" 'N. H.,' " he said.
An interval of silence followed, then, between the two
men, as they looked into each other's eyes. Fillery waited
for his assistant to speak, but no word came,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 203
"LeVallon, ' the older man continued, "is the transient,
acquired personality. It does not interest us. There is
no real LeVallon. The sole reality is *N. H.' "
He spoke with the earnestness of deep conviction. There
was still no reply or comment from the other.
"Paul," he continued, steadying his voice and placing a
hand upon his colleague's shoulder, "I am going to ask
you to consider our arrangement cancelled. I must "
Then, before he could finish what he had to say, the
other had said it for him:
"Edward, I give you back your promise."
He shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly, but there
was no unpleasant, no antagonistic touch now either in
voice or manner. There was, rather, a graver earnestness
than there had been hitherto, a hint of reluctant acquiescence,
but also there was an emotion that included certainly
affection. No such fundamental disagreement had ever
come between them during all their years of work together.
"You understand," he added slowly, "what you are doing
what is involved." His tone almost suggested that he
spoke to a patient, a loved patient, but one over whom he
had no control. He sighed.
"I belong, Paul, myself to the unstable if that is what
you mean," said his old friend gently, "and with all of
danger, or of wonder, it involves."
The faint movement of the shoulders again was notice-
able. "We need not put it that way, Edward," was the
quiet rejoinder; "for that, if true, can only help your in-
sight, your understanding, and your judgment." He
hesitated a moment or two, searching his mind carefully
for words. Fillery waited. "But it involves I think"
he went on presently in a firmer voice "his fate as well.
He must become permanently one or other."
No pause followed.. There was a smile of curious happi-
ness on Fillery's face as he instantly answered in a tone of
absolute conviction:
*04 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"There lies the root of our disagreement, Paul. There
is no 'other.' I am positive for once. There is only one,
and that one is 'N. H.' "
"Umph!" his friend grunted. Behind the exclamation
hid an attitude confirmed, as though he had come suddenly
to a big decision.
"You see, Paul I know."
CHAPTER XVII
IT was not long after the scene in the Studio that the
Prometheans foregathered at dinner in the back room
of the small French restaurant in Soho and discussed the
event. The prices were moderate, conditions free and easy.
It was a favourite haunt of Members.
To-night, moreover, there was likely to be a good
attendance. The word had gone out.
The Studio scene had, of course, been the subject of
much discussion already. The night of its occurrence it
had been talked over till dawn in more than one flat, and
during the following days the Society, as a whole, thought
of little else. Those who had not been present had to be
informed, and those who had witnessed it found it an
absorbing topic of speculation. The first words that passed
when one member met another in the street was: "What
did you make of that storm? Wasn't it amazing? Did
your solar plexus vibrate? Mine did! And the light, the
colour, the vibrations weren't they terrific? What do you
think he is?" It was rumoured that the Secretary was
asking for individual reports. Excitement and interest were
general, though the accounts of individual witnesses differed
extraordinarily. It seemed impossible that all had seen and
heard the same thing.
The back room was pleasantly filled to-night, for it was
somehow known that Millington Povey, and possibly Father
Collins, too, were coming. Miss Milligan, the astrologist,
was there early, arriving with Mrs. Towzer, who saw auras
and had already, it was rumoured, painted automatically
a strange rendering of "forces" that were visible to her
clairvoyantly during the occurrence. Miss Lance, in shin-
205
206 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
ing beads and a glittering scarf, arrived on their heels, an
account of the scene in her pocket to be published in her
magazine "Simplicity" after she had modified it according
to what she picked up from hearing other, and better,
descriptions.
Kempster, immaculate as ever, ordering his food as he
ordered his clothes, like a connoisseur, was one of the first
to establish himself in a comfortable seat. He knew how
to look after himself, and was already eating in his neat
dainty way while the others still stood about studying the
big white menu with its illegible hieroglyphics in smudged
violet ink. He supplemented his meals with special patent
foods of vegetarian kind he brought with him. He had
dried bananas in one pocket and spirit photographs in an-
other, and he was invariably pulling out the wrong thing.
Meat he avoided. "A man is what he eats," he held, and
animal blood was fatal to psychic development. To eat pig
or cow was to absorb undesirable characteristics.
Next to him sat Lattimer, a lanky man of thirty, with
loose clothes, long hair, and eyes of strange intensity.
Known as "occultist and alchemist," he was also a chemist
of some repute. His life was ruled by a master-desire and
a master-fear: the former, that he might one day project
his double consciously; the latter, that in his next earthly
incarnation he might be the prospect made him shudder
a woman. He sought to keep his thought as concrete
as possible, the male quality.
He believed that the nervous centre of the physical body
which controlled all such unearthly, if not definitely
"spiritual," impulses, was the solar plexus. For him it was
the important portion of his anatomy, the seat of intuition.
Brain came second.
. "The fellow," he declared emphatically, "stirred my solar
plexus, my kundalini that's all I know." He referred, as
all understood, to the latent power the yogis claim lies
coiled, but only rarely manifested, in that great nervous
centre.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 207
His statement, he knew, would meet with general approval
and understanding. It was the literal Kempster who spoiled
his opening:
"Paul Devonham," said the latter, "thinks it's merely a
secondary personality that emerged. I had a long argument
with him about it "
"Never argue with the once-born," declared Povey flatly,
producing his pet sentence. "It's waste of time. Only
older souls, with the experience of many earthly lives stored
in their beings, are knowledgeable." He filled his glass and
poured out for others, Lattimer and Mrs. Towzer alone
declining, though for different reasons.
"It destroys the 'sight/ " explained the former. "Alcohol
sets up coarse vibrations that ruin clairvoyance."
"I decided to deny myself till the war is over," was Mrs.
Towzer's reason, and when Povey reminded her of the
armistice, she mentioned that Turkey hadn't "signed yet."
"I think his soul " began Miss Lance.
"If he has a soul," put in Povey, electrically.
" is hardly in his body at all," concluded Miss Lance,
less convincingly than originally intended.
"It was love at first sight. His sign is Fire and hers
is Air," Miss Milligan said. "That's certain. Of course
they came together."
"A clear case of memory, at any rate," insisted Kempster.
"Two old souls meeting again for the first time for thousands
of years, probably. Love at first sight, or hate, for that
matter, is always memory, isn't it?" He disliked the
astrology explanation ; it was not mysterious enough, too
mathematical and exact to please him.
"Secondary personalities are invariably memories of
former selves, of course," agreed young Dickson, the
theosophist, who was on the verge now of becoming a
psycho-analyst and had already discarded Freud for Jung.
"If not memories of past lives, then they're desires sup-
pressed in this one."
"The less you think, the more you know," suggested
208 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Miss Lance. She distrusted intellect and believed that an-
other faculty, called instinct or intuition, according to which
word first occurred to her, was the way to knowledge.
She was about to quote Bergson upside down, when Povey,
foreseeing an interval of boredom, took command:
"One thing we know, at any rate," he began judiciously;
"we aren't the only beings in the universe. There are non-
human intelligences, both vast and small. The old world-
wide legends can't be built on nothing. In every age of
history the reports are universal we have pretty good
evidence for other forms of life than humans "
"Though never yet in human form," put in Lattimer, yet
sympathetically. "Their bodies, I mean, aren't human," he
added.
"Exactly. That's true. But the gods, the fauns, the
satyrs, the elemental beings, as we call 'em sylphs, undines,
gnomes and salamanders to say nothing of fairies et hoc
genus omne there must be some reasonable foundation
for their persistence through all the ages."
"They all belong to the Deva Evolution," Dickson men-
tioned with conviction. "In the East it's been known and
recognized for centuries, hasn't it? Another evolutionary
system that runs parallel to ours. From planetary spirits
down to elementals, they're concerned with the building
up of form in the various kingdoms "
"Yes, yes," Povey interrupted impatiently. Dickson was
stealing what he had meant to say himself and to say, he
flattered himself, far better. "We know all that, of course.
They stand behind what we call the laws of nature, non-
human activities and intelligences of every grade and kind.
They work for humanity in a way, are in other space and
time, deathless, of course, yet in some strange way, always
eager to cross the gulf fixed between the two and so find a
soul. They are impersonal in a sense, as impersonal as,
say, wind and fire through which some of them operate as
bodies."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 209
He paused and looked about him, noting the interested
attention he awaked.
"There may be times," he went on, "there probably are
certain occasions, when the gulf is more crossable than
others." He laid down his knife and fork as a sympathetic
murmur proved that the point he was leading up to was
favourably understood already. "We have had this war,
for instance," he stated, his voice taking on a more signifi-
cant and mysterious tone. "Dislodged by the huge upheaval,
man's soul is on the march again." He paused once more.
"They," he concluded, lowering his voice still more, and
emphasizing the pronoun, "are possibly already among us!
Who knows?"
He glanced round. "We do ; we know," was the expres-
sion on most faces- All knew precisely what he meant and
to whom he referred, at any rate.
"You might get him to come and lecture to us," said
Dickson, the first to break the pause. "You might ask Dr.
Fillery. You know him."
"That's an idea " began the Secretary, when
there was a commotion near the door. His face showed
annoyance.
It was the arrival of Toogood that at this moment dis-
turbed the atmosphere and robbed Povey of the effect he
aimed at. It provided Kempster, however, with an idea
at the same time. "Here's a psychometrist !" he exclaimed,
making room for him. "He might get a bit of his hair
or clothing and psychometrize it. He might tell us about
his past, if not exactly what he is."
The suggestion, however, found no seconder, for it
seemed that the new arrival was not particularly welcomed.
Judging by the glances, the varying shades of greeting, too,
he was not fully trusted, perhaps, this broad, fleshy man
of thirty-five, with complexion blotchy, an over-sensual
mouth and eyes a trifle shifty. His claim to membership
was two- fold : he remembered past lives, and had the strange
210 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
power of psychometry. An archaeologist by trade, his gift
of psychometry by which he claimed to hold an object and
tell its past, its pedigree, its history was of great use to
him in his calling. Without further trouble he could tell
whether such an object was genuine or sham. Dealers in
antiquities offered him big fees but "No, no; I cannot
prostitute my powers, you see" and he remained poor
accordingly.
In his past lives he had been either a famous Pharaoh, or
Cleopatra according to his audience of the moment and
its male or female character but usually Cleopatra, because,
on the whole, there was more money and less risk in her.
He lectured for a fee. Lately, however, he had been
Pharaoh, having got into grave trouble over the Cleopatra
claim, even to the point of being threatened with expulsion
from the Society. His attitude during the war, besides,
had been unsatisfactory it was felt he had selfishly pro-
tected himself on the grounds of being physically unfit.
Apart from archaeology, too, his chief preoccupation, derived
from past lives of course, was sex, in the form of other
men's wives, his own wife and children being, naturally,
very recent and somewhat negligible ties.
His gift of psychometry, none the less, was considered
proved in spite of the backward and indifferent dealers.
His mind was quick and not unsubtle. He became now
au fait with the trend of the conversation in a very few
seconds, but he had not been present at the Studio when
the occurrence all discussed had taken place.
"Hair would be best," he advised tentatively, sipping his
whisky-and-soda. He had already dined. "It's a part of
himself, you see. Better than mere clothing, I mean. It's
extremely vital, hair. It grows after death."
"If I can get it for you, I will," said Povey. "He may
be lecturing for us before long. I'll try."
"With psychometry and a good photograph," Kempster
suggested, "a time exposure, if possible, we ought to get
some evidence, at any rate. It's first-hand evidence we want,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 211
of course, isn't it? What do you think of this, for instance,
I wonder?" He turned to Lattimer, drawing something
from his pocket and showing it. "It's a time exposure at
night of a haunted tree. You'll notice a queer sort of
elemental form inside the trunk and branches. Oh!" He
replaced the shrivelled banana in his pocket, and drew out
the photograph without a smile. "This," he explained, wav-
ing it, "is what I meant." They fell to discussing it.
Meanwhile, Povey, anxious to resume his lecture, made
an effort to recover his command of the group-atmosphere
which Toogood had disturbed. The latter had a "personal
magnetism" which made the women like him in spite of
their distrust.
"I was just saying," he resumed, patting the elbow of
the psychometrist, "that this strange event we've been dis-
cussing you weren't present, I believe, at the time, but,
of course, you've heard about it has features which seem
to point to something radically new, or at least of very rare
occurrence. As Lattimer mentioned, a human body has
never yet, so far as we know, been occupied, obsessed, by
a non-human entity, but that, after all, is no reason why
it should not ever happen. What is a body, anyhow ? What
is an entity, too?" Povey's thought was wandering, evi-
dently; the thread of his first discourse was broken; he
floundered. "Man, anyway, is more than a mere chemical
machine," he went on, "a crystallization of the primitive
nebulae, though the instrument he uses, the body he works
through, is undoubtedly thus describable. Now, we know
there are all kinds of non-human intelligences busy on our
planet, in the Universe itself as well. Why, then, I ask,
should not one of these ?"
He paused, unable to find himself, his confusion obvious.
He was as glad of the interruption that was then provided
by the arrival of Imson as his audience was. Toogood
certainly was not sorry ; he need find no immediate answer.
He sipped his drink and made mental notes.
Imson arrived in a rough brown ulster with the collar
212 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
turned up about his ears, a low flannel shirt, not strictly
clean, lying loosely round his neck. His colourless face
was of somewhat flabby texture, due probably to his diet,
but its simple, honest expression was attractive, the smile
engaging. The touch of foolishness might have been child-
like innocence, even saintliness some thought, and though
he was well over forty, the unlined skin made him look
more like thirty. He enjoyed a physiognomy not unlike
that of a horse or sheep. His big, brown eyes stared wide
open at the world, expecting wonder and finding it. His
hobby was inspirational poems. One lay in his breast
pocket now. He burned to read it aloud.
Pat Imson's ideal was an odd one detachment ; the desire
to avoid all ties that must bring him back to future incar-
nations on the earth, to eschew making fresh Karma, in a
word. He considered himself an "old soul," and was rather
weary of it all of existence and development, that is. To
take no part in life meant to escape from those tangles for
whose unravelling the law of rebirth dragged the soul back
again and again. To sow no Causes was to have no harvest
of Effects to reap with toil and perspiration. Action, of
course, there must be, but "indifference to results of action"
was the secret. Imson, none the less, was always entangled
with wives and children. Having divorced one wife, and
been divorced by another, he had recently married a third ;
a flock of children streamed behind him; he was a good
father, if a strange husband.
"It's old Karma I have to work off," he would explain,
referring to the wives. "If I avoid the experience I shall
only have to come back again. There's no good shirking
old Karma." He gave this explanation to the wives them-
selves, not only to his friends. "Face it and it's done with,
worked off, you see." That is, it had to be done nicely,
kindly, generously.
An entire absence of the sense of humour was, of course,
his natural gift, yet a certain quaint wisdom helped to fill
the dangerous vacuum. He was known usually as "Pat."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 213
"Come on, Pat," said Povey, making room for him at
his side. "How's Karma? We're just talking about Le-
Vallon and the Studio business. What do you make of it?
You were there, weren't you ?" The others listened, atten-
tively, for Imson had a reputation for "seeing true."
"I saw it, yes," replied Imson, ordering his dinner with
indifference soup, fried potatoes, salad, cheese and coffee
but declining the offered wine. The group waited for
his next remark, but none was forthcoming. He sat
crumbling his bread into the soup and stirring the mixture
with his spoon.
"Did you see the light about him, Mr. Imson?" asked
Miss Lance. "The brilliant aura of golden yellow that he
wore? / thought it sounds exaggerated, I know but
to me it seemed even brighter than the lightning. Did you
notice it?"
"Well," said Imson slowly, putting his spoon down. "I'm
not often clairvoyant, you know. I did notice, however, a
sort of radiance about him. But with hair like that, it's
difficult to be certain "
"Full of lovely patterns," said Mrs. Towzer. "Geomet-
rical patterns."
"Like astrological designs," mentioned Miss Milligan.
"He's Leo, of course fire."
"Almost as though he brought or caused the lightning
as if it actually emanated out of his atmosphere somehow,"
claimed Miss Lance, for it was her conversation after all.
"I saw nothing of that," replied Imson quietly. "No, I
can't say I saw anything exactly like that." He added
honestly, with his engaging smile that had earned for him
in some quarters the nickname of "The Sheep": "I was
looking at Nayan, you see, most of the time."
A smile flickered round the table, for rumour had it that
the girl had once seemed to him as possible "Karma."
"So was I," put in Kempster with kindly intention, though
his sympathy was evidently not needed. Imson was too
simple even to feel embarrassment. "She came to life sud-
214 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
denly for the first time since I've known her. It was amaz-
ing." To which Imson, busy over his salad-dressing, made
no reply.
Povey, lighting his pipe and puffing out thick clouds of
smoke, was cleverer. "LeVallon's effect upon her, what-
ever it was, seemed instantaneous," he informed the table.
"I never saw a clearer case of two souls coming together
in a flash."
"As I said just now," Kempster quickly mentioned.
"They are similar," said Imson, looking up, while the
group waited expectantly.
"Similar," repeated Kempster. "Ah !"
"It was the surprise in her face that struck me most,"
observed Povey quickly, making an internal note of Imson's
adjective, but knowing that indirect methods would draw
him out better than point-blank questions. "LeVallon
showed it too. It was an unexpected recognition on both
sides. They are 'similar/ as you say; both at the same
stage of development, whatever that stage may be. The
expression on both faces "
"Escape," exclaimed Imson, giving at last the kernel of
what he had to say. And the effect upon the group was
electrical. A visible thrill ran round the Soho table.
"The very word," exclaimed Povey and Miss Lance to-
gether. "Escape !" But neither of them knew exactly what
they meant, nor what Imson himself meant.
"LeVallon has, of course, already escaped," the latter
went on quietly. "He is no longer caught by causes and
effects as we are here. He's got out of it all long ago
if he was ever in it at all."
"If he ever was in it at all," said Povey quickly. "You
noticed that too. You're very discerning, Pat."
"Clairvoyant," mentioned Miss Lance.
"I've seen them in dreams like that," returned Imson
calmly. "I often see them, of course." He referred to his
qualification for membership. "The great figures I see in
dream have just that unearthly expression."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 215
"Unearthly," said Mrs. Towzer with excitement.
"Non-human," mentioned Kempster suggestively.
"Not of this world, anyhow," suggested Miss Lance
mysteriously.
"Divine?" inquired Miss Milligan below her breath.
"Really," murmured Toogood, "I must get a bit of his
hair and psychometrize it at once." He was sipping a second
glass of whisky.
Imson looked round at each face in turn, apparently
seeing nothing that need increase his attachment to the
planet by way of fresh Karma.
"The Deva world," he said briefly, after a pause.
"Probably he's come to take Nayan off with him. She
I always said so has a strong strain of the elemental king-
dom in her. She may be his Devi. LeVallon, I'm sure,
is here for the first time. He's one of the non-human
evolution. He's slipped in. A Deva himself probably."
It was as though he said that the waiter was Swiss or
French, or that the proprietor's daughter had Italian blood
in her.
Povey looked round him with an air of triumph.
"Ah !" he announced, as who should say, "You all thought
my version a bit wild, but here's confirmation from an
unbiased witness."
"Oh, well, I can't be certain," Imson reminded the group.
If he deceived them enough to change their lives in any
respect, it involved fresh Karma for himself. Care was
indicated. "I can't be positive, can I?" he hedged. "Only
I must say the great deva-figures I've seen in dream
have exactly that look and expression."
"That's interesting, Pat," Povey put in, "because, before
you came, I was suggesting a similar explanation for his
air of immense potential power. The elemental atmosphere
he brought we all noticed it, of course."
"Elemental is the only word," Miss Lance inserted. "A
great Nature Being." She was thinking of her magazine.
216 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"He struck me as being so close to Nature that he seemed
literally part of it."
"That would explain the lightning and the strange cry
he gave about 'messengers,' " replied Imson, wiping the oil
from his chin and sprinkling his petit suisse with powdered
sugar. "It's quite likely enough."
"I wish you'd jot down what you think a little report
of what you saw and felt," the Secretary mentioned. "It
would be of great value. I thought of making a collection
of the different versions and accounts."
"They might be published some day," thought Miss
Lance. "Let's all," she added aloud with emphasis.
Imson nodded agreement, making no audible reply, while
the conversation ran on, gathering impetus as it went, grow-
ing wilder possibly, but also more picturesque. A man in
the street, listening behind a curtain, must have deemed the
talkers suffering from delusion, mad; a good psychologist,
on the other hand, similarly screened, and knowing the
antecedent facts, the Studio scene, at any rate, must have
been struck by one outstanding detail the effect, namely,
upon one and all of the person they discussed. They had
seen him for an hour or so among a crowd, a young man
whose name they hardly knew; only a few had spoken to
him ; there had been, it seemed, neither time nor opportunity
for him to produce upon one and all the impression he
undoubtedly had produced. For in every mind, upon every
heart, LeVallon's mere presence had evidently graven an
unforgettable image, scored an undecipherable hieroglyph.
Each felt, it seemed, the hint of a personality their knowl-
edge could not explain, nor any earthly explanation satisfy.
The consciousness in each one, perhaps, had been quickened.
Hence, possibly, the extravagance of their conversation.
Yet, since all reported differently, collective hysteria seemed
discounted.
Meanwhile, as the talk continued, and the wings of
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 217
imaginative speculation fanned the thick tobacco smoke,
others had dropped in, both male and female members, and
the group now filled the little room to the walls. The same
magnet drew them all, in each heart burned the same huge
question mark : Who what is this LeVallon ? What was
the meaning of the scene in Khilkoffs Studio?
Here, too, was a curious and significant fact about the
gathering the amount of knowledge, true or otherwise,
they had managed to collect about LeVallon. One way
or another, no one could say exactly how, the Society had
picked up an astonishing array of detail they now shared
together. It was known where he had spent his youth,
also how, and with whom, as well as something of the dif-
ferent views about him held by Dr. Devonham and Edward
Fillery. To such temperaments as theirs the strange, the
unusual, came automatically perhaps, percolating into their
minds as though a collective power of thought-reading
operated. Garbled, fanciful, askew, their information may
have been, but a great deal of it was not far wrong.
Imson, for instance, provided an account of LeVallon's
birth, to which all listened spellbound. He evaded all ques-
tions as to how he knew of it. "His parents," he assured
the room, "practised the old forgotten magic; his father,
'at any rate, was an expert, if not an initiate, with all the
rites and formulae of ancient times in his memory. Le-
Vallon was born as the result of an experiment, its origins
dating back so far that they concerned life upon another
planet, I believe, a planet nearer to the sun. The tre-
mendous winds and heat were vehicles of deity, you see
there!'
"The parents, you mean, had former lives upon another
planet?" asked someone in a hushed tone. "Or he him-
self?"
"The parents and Mason. Mason was involved in the
experiment that resulted in the birth of LeVallon here
to-day."
218 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"The experiment what was it exactly?" inquired
Lattimer, while Toogood surreptitiously made notes on his
rather dirty cuff.
Imson shrugged his shoulders very slightly.
"Some of it came to me in sleep," he mentioned, produc-
ing a paper from his pocket and beginning to read it aloud
before anyone could stop him.
" When the sun was younger, and moon and stars
Were thrilled with my human birth,
And the winds fled shouting the wondrous news
As they circled the sea and the earth,
" From the fight for money and worldly fame
I drew one magical soul
Who came to me over the star-lit sea
As the needle turns to the Pole.
" Conceived in the hour the stars foretold,
This son of the winds I bore,
And I taught him the secrets of "
"Yes," interrupted Povey audaciously, "but the experi-
ment you were telling us about ?"
A murmur of approving voices helped him.
"Oh, the experiment, yes, well all I know is," he went
on with conviction, calmly replacing the poem in his pocket,
"that it concerned an old rite, involving the evocation of
some elemental being or nature-spirit the three of them
had already evoked millions of years before, but had not
banished again. The experiment they made to-day was to
restore it to its proper sphere. In order to do so, they had
to evoke it again, and, of course" he glanced round, as
though all present were familiar with the formula of magical
practices "it could come only through the channel of a
human system."
"Of course, yes," murmured a dozen voices, while eyes
grew bigger and a pin dropping must have been audible.
"Well" Imson spoke very slowly now, each word clear
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 219
as a bell "the father, who was officiating, failed. He could
not stand the strain. His heart stopped beating. He died
just when it was there, he dropped dead."
"What happened to iff" asked Povey, too interested to
care that he no longer led the room. "You said it could
only use a human system as channel "
"It did so," explained Imson.
The information produced a pause of several seconds.
Some of the members, like Toogood, though openly, were
making pencil notes upon cuffs or backs of envelopes.
"But the channel was neither Mason nor the woman."
The effect of this negative information was as nothing com-
pared to the startling interest produced by the speaker's
next words: "It took the easiest channel, the line of least
resistance the unborn body of the child."
Povey, seizing his opportunity, leaped into the silence :
"Whose body, now full grown, and named LeVallon,
came to the Studio!" he exclaimed, looking round at the
group, as though he had himself given the explanation all
had just listened to. "A human body tenanted by a nature-
spirit, one of the form-builders a Deva, . , ."
CHAPTER XVIII
FOR all the wildness of the talk, this group of the
Unstable was a coherent and consistent entity, using
a language each item in it understood. They knew what
they were after. Alcohol, coffee, tobacco, underfeeding,
these helped or hindered, respectively, the expression of
an ideal that, nevertheless, was common to them all; and
if the minds represented were unbalanced, or merely specu-
lative, poetic, one genuine quest and sympathy bound all
together into a coherent, and who shall say unintelligent or
valueless, unit. The unstable enjoyed an extreme sensitive-
ness to varied experience, with flexible adaptability to all
possible new conditions, whereas the stable, with their rigid
mental organizations, remained uninformed, stagnant, even
fossilized.
In other rooms about the great lamp-lit city sat, doubt-
less, other similar groups at the very same moment, dis-
cussing the shibboleths of other faiths, of other dreams, of
other ideas, systems, notions, philosophies, all interpretative
of the earth in which little humanity dwells, cut off and
isolated, apparently, from the rest of the stupendous
universe. A listener, screened from view, a listener not
in sympathy with the particular group he observed, and
puzzled, therefore, by the language used, must have deemed
he listened to harmless, if boring, madness. For each group
uses its own language, and the lowest common denominator,
though plainly printed in the world's old scriptures, has not
yet become adopted by the world at large.
Into this particular group, a little later in the evening,
and when the wings of imagination had increased their
220
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 221
sweep a trifle dangerously perhaps into the room, like the
arrival of a policeman rather, dropped Father Collins. He
came rarely to the Prometheans' restaurant. There was a
general sense of drawing breath as he appeared. A pause
followed. Something of the cold street air came with him.
He wore his big black felt hat, his shabby opera cloak, and
clutched firmly he had no gloves on the heavy gnarled
stick he had cut for his collection in a Cingalese forest
years ago, when he was studying with a Buddhist priest.
The folds of his voluminous cloak, as he took it off, sent
the hanging smoke-clouds in a whirl. His personality stirred
the mental atmosphere as well. The women looked up and
stared, respectful welcome in their eyes ; several of the men
rose to shake hands ; there was a general shuffling of chairs.
"Bring another moulin a vent and a clean glass," Povey
said at once to the hovering waiter.
"It's raw and bitter in the street and a fog coming down
thickly," mentioned Father Collins. He exhaled noisily and
with comfortable relief, as he squeezed himself towards
the chair Povey placed for him and looked round genially,
nodding and shaking hands with those he knew. "But
you're warm and cosy enough in here" he sat down with
unexpected heaviness, and smiled at everybody "and well
fed, too, I'll be bound."
" The body must be comfortable before the mind can
enjoy itself,' " said Phillipps, an untidy member who dis-
liked asceticism. "Starvation produces hallucination, not
vision." His glance took in the unused glasses. His qualifi-
cation was a vision of an uncle at the moment of death,
and the uncle had left him money. He had written a wordy
pamphlet describing it.
"I'll have an omelette, then, I think," Father Collins told
the waiter, as the red wine arrived. "And some fried
potatoes. A bit of cheese to follow, and coffee, yes." He
filled his glass. He had not come to argue or to preach,
and Phillipps's challenge passed unnoticed. Phillipps, who
had been leading the talk of late, resented the new arrival,
222 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
but felt his annoyance modify as he saw his own glass
generously filled. Povey, too, accepted a glass, while say-
ing with a false vehemence, "No, no," his finger against
the rim.
A change stole over the room, for the new personality
was not negligible; he brought his atmosphere with him.
The wild talk, it was felt now, would not be quite suit-
able. Father Collins had the reputation of being some-
thing of a scholar; they were not quite sure of him; none
knew him very intimately ; he had a rumoured past as well
that lent a flavour of respect. One story had it that
"dabbling in magic" had lost him his position in the Church.
Yet he was deemed an asset to the Society.
Whatever it was, the key changed sharply. Imson's eyes
and ears grew wider, the hand of Miss Lance went instinc-
tively to her hair and combs, Miss Milligan sought through
her mind for a remark at once instructive and uncommon,
Mrs. Towzer looked past him searchingly lest his aura
escape her before she caught its colour, and Kempster,
smoothing his immaculate coat, had an air of being in his
present surroundings merely by chance. Toogood, quickly
scanning his notes, wondered whether, if called upon, he
was to be Pharaoh or Cleopatra. One and all, that is, took
on a soberer gait. This semi-clerical visit complicated. The
presence of Father Collins was a compliment. What he
had to say about LeVallon and the Studio scene was,
anyhow, assured of breathless interest.
Povey led off. "We were just talking over the other
night," he observed, "the night at the Studio, you remember.
The storm and so on. It was a singular occurrence, though,
of course, we needn't, we mustn't exaggerate it." And
while he thus, as Secretary, set the note, Father Collins
sipped his wine and beamed upon the group. He made no
comment. "You were there, weren't you ?" continued Povey,
sipping his own comforting glass. "I think I saw you.
Fillery, you may have noticed," he added, "brought a
friend."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 223
"LeVallon, yes," said the other in a tone that startled
them. "A most unusual fellow, wasn't he?" He was
attacking the omelette now. "A Greek God, if ever I saw
one," he added. And the silence in the crowded room
became abruptly noticeable. Miss Milligan, feeling her
zodiacal garter slipping, waited to pull it up. Imson's brown
eyes grew wider. Kempster held his breath. Toogood
borrowed a cigar and waited for someone to offer him a
match before he lit it.
"Delicious," added Father Collins. "Cooked to a turn."
the omelette slid about his plate.
But the silence continued, and he realized the position
suddenly. Emptying his glass and casually refilling it, he
turned and faced the eager group about him.
"You want to know what 7 thought about it all," he
said. "You've been discussing LeVallon, Nayan and the
rest, I see." He looked round as though he were in the
lost pulpit that was his right. After a pause he asked point
blank: "And what do you all think of it? How did it
strike you all? For myself, I confess" he took another
sip and paused "I am full of wonder and question," he
finished abruptly.
It was Imson, the fearless, wondering Pat Imson, who
first found his tongue.
"We think," he ventured, "LeVallon is probably of Deva
origin."
The others, while admiring his courage, seemed unsym-
pathetic suddenly. Such phraseology, probably meaningless
to the respected guest, was out of place. Eyes were cast
down, or looked generally elsewhere. Povey, remembering
that the Society was not solely Eastern, glared at the speaker.
Father Collins, however, was not perturbed.
"Possibly," he remarked with a courteous smile. "The
origin of us all is doubtful and confused. We know not
whence we come, of course, and all that. Nor can we
ever tell exactly who our neighbour is, or what. LeVallon,"
he went on, "since you all ask me" he looked round again
824 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"is for me an undecipherable being. I am," he added,
his words falling into open mouths and extended eyes and
ears, "somewhat puzzled. But more I am enormously
stimulated and intrigued."
All gazed at him. Father Collins was in his element.
The rapt silence that met him was precisely what he had
a right to expect from his lost pulpit. He had come,
probably, merely to listen and to watch. The opportunity
provided by a respectful audience was too much for him.
An inspiration tempted him.
"I am inclined to believe," he resumed suddenly in a
simple tone, "that he is a Messenger."
The sentence might have dropped from Sirius upon a
listening planet. The babble that followed must, to an
ordinary man, have seemed confusion. Everyone spoke with
a rush into his neighbour's ear. All bubbled. "I always
thought so, I told you so, that was exactly what I meant
just now" and so on. All found their tongues, at any
rate, if Povey, as Secretary, led the turmoil :
"Something outside our normal evolution, you mean?"
he asked judiciously. "Such a conception is possible, of
course."
"A Messenger!" ran on the babel of male and female
voices.
It was here that Father Collins failed. The "unstable"
in him came suddenly uppermost. The "ecstatic" in his
being took the reins. The wondering and expectant
audience suited him. The red wine helped as well. When
he said "Messenger" he had meant merely someone who
brought a message. The expression of nobility merged
more and more in the slovenly aspect. Like a priest in
the pulpit, whom none can answer and to whom all must
listen, he had his text, though that text had been suggested
actually by the conversation he had just heard. He had
not brought it with him. It occurred to him merely then
and there. His mind reflected, in a word, the collective
idea that was in the air about him, and he proceeded to
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 225
sum it up and give expression to it. This was his gift,
his fatal gift a ready sensitiveness, a plausible exposition.
He caught the prevailing mood, the collective notion, then
dramatized it. Before he left the pulpit he invariably,
however, convinced himself that what he had said in it
was true, inspired, a revelation for that moment.
"A Messenger," he announced, thrusting his glass aside
with an impatient gesture as though noticing for the first
time that it was there. "A Messenger," he repeated, the
automatic emphasis in his voice already persuading him that
he believed what he was about to say, "sent among us from
who knows what distant sphere" he drew himself up and
looked about him "and for who can guess on what
mysterious and splendid mission."
His eye swept his audience, his hand removed the glass
yet farther lest, it impede free gesture. It was, however,
as Povey noticed, empty now. "We, of course," he went on
impressively, lowering his voice, "we, a mere handful in
the world, but alert and watchful, all of us we know that
some great new teaching is expected" he threw out another
challenging glance "but none of us can know whence it
may come nor in what way it shall manifest." His voice
dropped dramatically. "Whether as a thief in the night,
or with a blare of trumpets, none of us can tell. But we
expect it and are ready. To us, therefore, perhaps, as to
the twelve fishermen of old, may be entrusted the privilege
of accepting it, the work of spreading it among a hostile
and unbelieving world, even perhaps the final sacrifice of
of suffering for it."
He paused, quickly took in the general effect of his words,
picked up here and there a hint of question, and realized
that he had begun on too exalted a note. Detecting this
breath of caution in the collective mind that was his inspira-
tion, he instantly shifted his key.
"LeVallon," he resumed, instinctively emphasizing the
conviction in his voice so that the change of key might be
less noticeable, "undoubtedly believes himself to be some
226 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
such divine Messenger. . . ." It was consummate hedg-
ing.
The sermon needs no full report. The audience, without
realizing it, witnessed what is known as an "inspirational
address," where a speaker, naturally gifted with a certain
facile eloquence, gathers his inspiration, takes his changing
cues as well, from the collective mind that listens to him.
Father Collins, quite honestly doubtless, altered his key
automatically. He no longer said that LeVallon was a
Messenger, but that he "believed himself" to be one. Like
Balaam, he said things he had not at first thought of saying.
He talked for some ten minutes without stopping. He said
"all sorts of things," according to the expression of critical
doubt, of wonder, of question, of rejection or acceptance,
on the particular face he gazed at. At regular intervals
he inserted, with considerable effect, his favourite sentence :
"A man in his own place is the Ruler of his Fate."
He developed his idea that LeVallon "believed himself
to be such and such . . ." but declared that the conception
had been put into the youth during his life of exile in the
mountains the Society had already acquired this informa-
tion and extended it and had "felt himself into" the role
until he had become its actual embodiment.
"He does not think, he does not reason," he explained.
"He feels he feels with. Now, to 'feel with' anything
is to become it in the end. It is the only way of true
knowledge, of course, of true understanding. If I want to
understand, say, an Arab, I must feel with that Arab to
the point for the moment of actually becoming him. And
this strange youth has spent his time, his best years, mark
you his creative years, feeling with the elemental forces
of Nature until he has actually becomes at moments one
with them."
He paused again and stared about him. He saw faces
shocked, astonished, startled, but not hostile. He continued
rapidly: "There lies the danger. One may get caught,
get stuck. Lose the desire to return to one's normal self.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 227
Which means, of course, remaining out of relation with
one's environment mad. Only a man in his own place
is the ruler of his luck. . . ."
He noticed suddenly the look of disappointment on several
faces. He swiftly hedged.
"On the other hand," he went on, making his voice and
manner more impressive than before, "it may be who can
say indeed? it may be that he is in relation with another
environment altogether, a much vaster environment, an
extended environment of which the rest of humanity is
unaware. The privilege of tasting something of an ex-
tended environment some of us here already enjoy. What
we all know as human activities are doubtless but a frag-
ment of life the conscious phenomena merely of some
larger whole of which we are aware in fleeting seconds
only by mood, by hint, by suggestive hauntings, so to speak
by faint shadows of unfamiliar, nameless shape cast
across our daily life from some intenser sun we normally
cannot see! LeVallon may be, as some of us think and
hope, a Messenger to show us the way into a yet farther
field of consciousness. . . .
"It is a fine, a noble, an inspiring hope, at any rate," he
assured the room. "Unless some such Messenger comes
into the world, showing us how to extend our knowledge,
we can get no farther; we shall never know more tfyan
we know now ; we shall only go on multiplying our channels
for observing the same old things. . . ."
He closed his little address finally on a word as to what
attitude should be adopted to any new experience of amaz-
ing and incredible kind. To a Society such as the one
he had the honour of belonging to was left the guidance
of the perverse and ignorant generations outside of it, "the
lethargic and unresponsive majority," as he styled them.
"We must not resist," he declared bravely. "We must
accept with confidence, above all without fear." He leaned
back in his chair, somewhat exhausted, for the source of
his inspiration was evidently weakening. His words came
228 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
less spontaneously, less easily; he hesitated, sighed, looked
from face to face for help he did not find. His glass was
empty. "We're here," he concluded lamely, "without being
consulted, and we may safely leave to the Powers that
brought us here the results of such acceptance."
"Quite so," agreed Povey, sighing audibly. "Denial will
get us nowhere." He filled up Father Collins's glass and
his own. "I think most of us are ready enough to accept
any new experience that comes, and to accept it without
fear." He drained his own glass and looked about him.
"But the point is how did LeVallon produce the effect
upon us all the effect he did produce? He may be non-
human, or he may be merely mad. He may, as Imson says,
come to us by some godless chance from another evolutionary
system of which, mind you, we have as yet no positive
knowledge or he may be a Messenger, as Father Collins
suggests, from some divine source, bringing new teaching.
But, in the name of Magic, how did he manage it? In
other words what is he?"
For Povey could be very ruthless when he chose. It
was this ruthlessness, perhaps, that made him such an effi-
cient secretary. The note of extravagance in his language
had possibly another inspiration.
An awkward pause, at any rate, followed his remarks.
Father Collins had comforted and blessed the group. Povey
introduced cold water rather.
"There's this and th re's that," remarked Miss Milligan,
tactfully.
"Those among us," added Miss Lance with sympathy,
"who have The Sight, know at least what they have seen.
Still, I think we are indebted to Father Collins for his
guidance."
"If we knew exactly what he is," mentioned Mrs. Towzer,
referring to LeVallon, "we should know exactly where we
are."
They got up to go. There was a fumbling among crowded
hat-pegs.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 829
"What is he?" offered Kempster. "He certainly made
us all sit up and take notice."
"No mere earthly figure," suggested Imson, "could have
produced the effect he did. In my poem it came to me in
sleep "
Father Collins held his glass unsteadily to the light. "A
Messenger," he interrupted with authority, "would affect
us all differently, remember."
The talk continued in this fashion for a considerable
time, while all searched for wraps and coats. The waiter
brought the bill amid general confusion, but no one noticed
him. All were otherwise engaged. Povey paid it finally,
putting it down to the Entertainment Account.
"Remember," he said, as they stood in a group on the
restaurant steps, each wondering who would provide a lift
home, "remember, we have all got to write out an account
of what we saw and heard at the Studio. These reports
will be valuable. They will appear in our 'Psychic Bulletin'
first. Then I'll have them bound into a volume. And I
shall try and get LeVallon to give us a lecture too. Tickets
will be extra, of course, but each member can bring a friend.
I'll let you all know the date in due course."
-.
CHAPTER XIX
WHILE the Prometheans thus, individually and collec-
tively fermenting, floundered between old and new
interpretations of a strange occurrence, in another part of
London something was happening, of its kind so real, so
interesting, that one and all would eagerly have renounced
a favourite shibboleth or pet desire to witness it. Kempster
would have eaten a raw beefsteak, Lattimer have agreed
to rebirth as a woman, Mrs. Towzer have swallowed whisky
neat, and even Toogood have written a signed confession
that his "psychometry," was intelligent guesswork.
It is the destiny, however, of such students of the wonder-
ful to receive their data invariably at second or third hand ;
the data may deal with genuine occurrences, but the student
seems never himself present at the time. From books, from
reports, from accounts of someone who knew an actual
witness, the student generally receives the version he then
proceeds to study and elaborate.
In this particular instance, moreover, no version ever
reached their ears at all, either at second or third hand,
because the only witness of what happened was Edward
Fillery, and he mentioned it to no one. Its reality, its
interpretation likewise, remained authoritative only for that
expert, if unstable, mind that experienced the one and
divined the other.
His conversation with Devonham over, and the latter
having retired to his room, Fillery paid a last visit to the
patient who was now his private care, instead of merely
an inmate of the institution that was half a Home and half
a Spiritual Clinique. The figure lay sleeping quietly, the
lean, muscular body bare to the wind that blew upon it
from the open window. Graceful, motionless, both pillow
230
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 231
f and coverings rejected, "N. H." breathed the calm, regular
breath of deepest slumber. The light from the door just
touched the face and folded hands, the features wore
no expression of any kind, the hair, drawn back from the
forehead and temples, almost seemed to shine.
Through the window came the rustle of the tossing
branches, but the night air, though damp, was neither raw
nor biting, and Fillery did not replace the sheets upon the
great sleeping body. He withdrew as softly as he entered.
Knowing he would not close an eye that night, he left the
house silently and walked out into the deserted streets. . . .
The rain had ceased, but the wet wind rushed in gusts
against him, the soft blows and heavy moisture acting as
balm to his somewhat tired nerves. As with great elemental
hands, the windy darkness stroked him, soothing away the
intense excitement he had felt, muting a thousand eager
questions. They stroked his brain into a gentler silence
gradually. "Don't think, don't think," night whispered all
about him, "but feel, feel, feel. What you want to know
will come to you by feeling now." He obeyed instinctively.
Down the long, empty streets he passed, swinging his stick,
tapping the lampposts, noting how steady their light held
in the wind, noting the tossing trees in little gardens, noting
occasionally rifts of moonlight between the racing clouds,
but relinquishing all attempt to think.
He counted the steps between the lamp-posts as he swung
along, leaving the kerb at each crossing with his left foot,
taking the new one with his right, planting each boot safely
in the centre of each paving stone, establishing, in a word,
a sort of rhythm as he moved. He did so, however, without
being consciously aware of it. He was not aware, indeed,
of anything but that he swung along with this pleasant
rhythmical stride that rested his body, though the exercise
was vigorous.
And the night laid her deep peace upon him as he
went. . . .
The streets grew narrower, twisted, turned and ran up-
232 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
hill; the houses became larger, spaced farther apart, less
numerous, their gardens bigger, with groups of trees instead
of isolated specimens. He emerged suddenly upon the open
heath, tasting a newer, sweeter air. The huge city lay
below him now, but the rough, shouting wind drowned its
distant roar completely. For a time he stood and watched
its twinkling lights across the vapours that hung between,
then turned towards the little pond. He knew it well. Its
waves flew dancing happily. The familiar outline of Jack
Straw's Castle loomed beyond. The square enclosure of
the anti-aircraft gun rattled with a metallic sound in the
wind. . . .
He had been walking for the best part of two hours now,
thinking nothing but feeling only, and his surface-conscious-
ness, perhaps, lay still, inactive. The mind was quiescent
certainly, his being subdued and lulled by the rhythmic
movement which had gained upon his entire system. The
sails of his ship hung idly, becalmed above the profound
deeps below. It was these deeps, the mysterious and in-
exhaustible region below the surface, that now began to
stir. There stole upon him a dim prophetic sense as of
horizons lifting and letting in new light. He glanced about
him. The moon was brighter certainly, the flying scud was
thinning, though the dawn was still some hours away. But
it was not the light of moon or sun or stars he looked for ;
it was no outer light.
The little waves fell splashing at his feet. He watched
them for a long time, keeping very still ; his heart, his mind,
his nerves, his muscles, all were very still. . . . He became
aware that new big powers were alert and close, hovering
above the world, feathering the Race like wings of mighty
birds. The waters were being troubled. . . .
He turned and walked slowly, but ever with the same
pleasant rhythm that was in him, to the pine trees, where
he paused a minute, listening to the branches shaking and
singing, then retraced his steps along the ridge, every yard
of which, though blurred in darkness, he knew and recog-
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 233
nized. Below, on his left lay London, on his right stretched
the familiar country, though now invisible, past Hendon
with its Welsh Harp, Wembley, and on towards Harrow,
whose church steeple would catch the sunrise before very
long. He reached the little pond again and heard its small
waves rushing and tumbling in the south-west wind. He
stood and watched them, listening to their musical wash and
gurgle.
The waters, yes, were being troubled. . . . Despite the
buffeting wind, the world lay even stiller now about him;
no single human being had he seen ; even stiller than before,
too, lay heart and mind within him ; the latter held no single
picture. He was aware, yes, of horizons lifting, of great
powers alert and close; the interior light increased. He
felt, but he did not think. Into the empty chamber of his
being, swept and garnished, flashed suddenly, then, as in
picture form, the memory of "N. H," All that he knew
about him came at once : Paul's notes and journey, the Lon-
don scenes and talks, his own observations, deductions,
questionings, his dreams, and fears and yearnings, his hope
and wonder all came in a clapping instant, complete and
simultaneous. Into his opened subconscious being floated
the power and the presence of that bright messenger who
brought glad tidings to his life.
"N. H." stood beside him, whispering with lips that were
the darkness, and with words that were the wind. It was
the power and presence of "N. H." that lifted the horizon
and let in light. His body lay sleeping miles away in that
bed against an open window. This was his real presence.
Without words, as without thought, understanding came.
The appeal of "N. H." was direct to the subliminal mind;
it was the hidden nine-tenths he stimulated ; hence came the
intensification of consciousness in all who had to do with
him., And it operated now. Fillery was aware of defying
time and space, as though there were no limits to his being.
Faith lights fires. . . . Perception wandered down those
dusky by-ways behind the mind that lead through trackless
234 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
depths where the massed heritage of the world-soul, lit
sometimes by a flashing light, reveal incredible, incalculable
things. One of those flashes came now. Through the fis-
sures, as it were, of his unstable being rose the marvellous,
uncanny gleam. His eyes were opened and he saw.
The label, he realized, was incorrect, inadequate "N.
H." was a misnomer; more than human, both different to
and greater than, came nearer to the truth. A being from
other conditions certainly, belonging to another order; an
order whose work was unremitting service rendered with
joy and faithfulness; a hierarchy whose service included
the entire universe, the stars and suns and nebulae, earth
with her frail humanity but an insignificant fraction of it
all. . . .
He came, of course, from that central sea of energy
whence all life, pushing irresistibly outwards into form,
first arises. Like human beings, he came thence undoubt-
edly, but more directly than they, in more intimate relations,
therefore, with the elemental powers that build up form
and shape the destinies of matter. One only of a mighty
host of varying degrees and powers, his services lay inter-
woven with the very heart and processes of Nature herself.
The energies of heat and air, essentials of all life every-
where, were his handmaidens; he worked with fire and
wind ; in the forms he helped to build he set enthusiasm and
energy aglow. . . .
From stars and fire-mist he came now into humanity,
using the limited instrument of a human mechanism, a
mechanism he must learn to master without breaking it. A
human brain and nerves confined him. He could deal with
essences only, those essential, buried, semi-elemental powers
that lie ever waiting below the threshold of all human con-
sciousness, linking men, did they but know it, direct with
the sea of universal life which is inexhaustible, independent
of space and time. The fraction of his nature which had
manifested as a transient surface-personality LeVallon
was gone for ever, merged in the real self below.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 235
His origin was already forgotten; no memory of it lay
in his present brain ; he must suffer training, education, and
he turned instinctively to those whose ideal, like his own,
was one of impersonal service. To a woman he turned,
and to a man. His recognition, guided by Nature, was sure
and accurate. It must take time and patience, sympathy
and love, faith, belief and trust, and the labour must be
borne by one man chiefly by Fillery, into whose life had
come this strange bright messenger carrying glad tidings
... to prove at last that man was greater than he knew,
that the hope for Humanity, for the deteriorating Race,
for crumbling Civilization, lay in drawing out into full prac-
tical consciousness the divine powers concealed below the
threshold of every single man and woman. . . .
But how, in what practical manner, what instrument could
they use? The human mechanism, the brain, the mind,
afforded inadequate means of manifestation ; new wines into
old skins meant disaster ; knowledge, power beyond the ex-
perience of the Race needed a better instrument than the
one the Race had painfully evolved for present uses. New
powers of unknown kinds, as already in those rare cases
when the supernormal forces emerged, could only strain
the machinery and cause disorder. A new order of con-
sciousness required another, a different equipment. And
the idea flashed into him, as in the Studio when he watched
"N. H." and the girl Father Collins had divined its pos-
sibility as well the idea of a group consciousness, a collec-
tive group-soul. What a single individual might not be
able to resist at first without disaster, many a group in
harmony two or three gathered together in unfson these
might provide the way, the means, the instrument the body.
"The personal merged in the impersonal," he exclaimed
to the night about him, already aware that words, expres-
sion, failed even at this early stage of understanding.
"Beauty, Art! Where words, form, colour end, we shall
construct, while yet using these as far as they go, a new
vehicle, a new "
236 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"Good evenin'," said a gruff voice. "Good evenin', sir,"
it added more respectfully, after a second's inspection.
"Turned out quite fine after the storm."
Aware of the policeman suddenly, Fillery started and
turned round abruptly. Evidently he had uttered his
thoughts aloud, probably had cried and shouted them. He
could think of nothing in the world to say.
"It was a terrible storm. I hardly ever see the likes
of it." The man was looking at him still with doubtful
curiosity.
"Extraordinary, yes." Dr. Fillery managed to find a
few natural words. It was an early hour in the morning
to be out, and his position by the pond, he now realized,
might have suggested an undesirable intention. "It made
sleep impossible, and I came out to to take a walk. I'm
a doctor, Dr. Fillery the Fillery Home."
"Yes, sir," said the man, apparently satisfied. He looked
at the sky. "All blown away again," he remarked, "and the
moon that nice and bright "
Fillery offered something in reply, then moved away. The
moon, he noticed, was indeed nice and bright now ; the heavy
lower vapours all had vanished, and thin cirrus clouds at
a great height moved, slowly before an upper wind; the
stars shone clearly, and a faint line of colour gave a hint
of dawn not far away.
He glanced at his watch. It was nearly half-past four.
"It's impossible, impossible," he thought to himself, the
pictures he had been seeing still hanging before his eyes.
"It was all feeling merely feeling. My blood, my heritage
asserting themselves upon an over-tired system ! Too much
repression evidently. I must find an outlet. My Caucasian
Valley again!"
He walked rapidly. His mind began to work, and think-
ing made an effort to replace feeling. He watched himself.
His everyday surface-consciousness partially resumed its
sway. The policeman, of course, had interrupted the flow
and inrush of another state just at the moment when a
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 37
flash of direct knowledge was about to blaze. It concerned
"N. H.," his new patient. In another moment he would
have known exactly what and who he was, whence he came,
the purpose and the powers that attended him. The police-
man and inner laughter ran through him at this juxta-
position of the practical and the transcendental had
interfered with an interesting expansion of his being. An
extension of consciousness, perhaps a touch of cosmic con-
sciousness, was on the way. The first faint quiver of its
coming, magical with wondrous joy, had touched him. Its
cause, its origin, he knew not, yet he could trace both to
the effect produced upon him by "N. H." Of that he was
sure. This effect his reasoning mind, with busy analysis
and criticism, had hitherto partially suppressed, even at its
first manifestation in Charing Cross Station. To-night,
criticism silent and analysis inactive, it had found an outlet,
his own deep inner stillness had been its opportunity. Then
came the practical, honest, simple policeman, the censor,
who received so much a week to keep people in the way
they ought to follow, the safe, broad way. . . .
He smiled, as he walked rapidly along the deserted streets.
He knew so well the method and process of these abnormal
states in others. As he swung along, not tired now, but
rested, rather, and invigorated, the rhythm of motion es-
tablished itself again. "N. H." a Nature Spirit ! A Nature
Being! Another order of life entering humanity for the
first time, that humanity for whose welfare it or was it
he? had worked, with hosts of similar beings, during in-
calculable ages. . . ,
He smiled, remembering the policeman again. There was
always a policeman, or a censor. Oh, the exits beyond safe
normal states of being, the exits into extended fields of
consciousness, into an outer life which the majority, led
by the best minds of the day, deny with an oath these
were well guarded! His smile, as he thought of it, ran
from his lips and settled in the eyes, lingering a moment
there before it died away. . . .
238 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
How quiet, yet unfamiliar, the suburb of the huge city
lay about him in pale half-light. The Studio scene, how
distant it seemed now in space and time; it had happened
weeks ago in another city somewhere. Devonham, his cau-
tious, experienced assistant, how far away! He belonged
to another age. The Prometheans were part of a dream in
childhood, a dream of pantomime or harlequinade whose
extravagance yet conveyed symbolic meaning. Two figures
alone retained a reality that refused to be dismissed a
mysterious, enigmatic youth, a radiant girl with perhaps
a third a broken priest. . . .
The rhythm, meanwhile, gained upon him, and, as it did.
so, thinking once more withdrew and feeling stole back
softly. His being became more harmonized, more one with
itself, more open to inspiration. . . . "N. H.," whose work
was service, service everywhere, not merely in that tiny
corner of the universe called Humanity. . . . "N. H.," who
could neither age nor die. . . . What was the hidden link
that bound them ? Had they not served and played together
in some lost Caucasian valley, leaped with the sun's hot fire,
flown in the winds of dawn . . . sung, laughed and danced
at their service, with a radiant sylph-like girl who had at
last enticed them into the confinement of a limited human
form? . . . Did not that valley symbolize, indeed, another
state of existence, another order of consciousness altogether
that lay beyond any known present experience or descrip-
tion . . .?
The dawn, meanwhile, grew nearer and a pallid light ran
down the dreadful streets. . . . He reached at length the
foot of the hill upon whose shoulder his own house stood.
The familiar sights stirred more familiar currents of feeling,
and these in turn sought words. . . .
The crowding houses, with their tight-shut windows, fol-
lowed and pressed after as he climbed. They swarmed
behind him. How choked and airless it all was. He thought
of the heavy-footed routine of the thousands who occupied
these pretentious buildings. Here lived a section of the
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 239
greatest city on the planet, almost a separate little town,
with marked characteristics, atmosphere, tastes and habits.
How many, he wondered, behind those walls knew yearning,
belief, imagination beyond the ruck and routine of familiar
narrow thought? Rows upon rows, with their stunted,
manufactured trees, hideous conservatories, bulging porches,
ornamented windows his wings beat against them all with
the burning desire to set their inmates free. They caged
themselves in deliberately. A few thousand years ago these
people lived in mud huts, before that in caves, before that
again in trees. Now they were "civilized." They dwelt
in these cages. Oh, that he might tear away the thick dead
bricks, and let in light and dew and stars, and the brave,
free winds of heaven! Waken the deeper powers they
carried unwittingly about with them through all their tedious
sufferings! Teach them that they were greater than they
knew!
The yearning was deep and true in him, as the houses
followed and tried to bar his way. Many of the occupiers,
he knew, would welcome help, would gaze with happy,
astonished eyes at the wonder of their own greater selves
set free. Not all, of course, were wingless. Yet the ma-
jority, he felt, were otherwise. They peered at him from
behind thick curtains, hostile, sceptical, contented with their
lot, averse to change. Mode, custom, habit chained them
to the floor. He was aware of a collective obstinate grin
of smug complacency, of dull resistance. Though a part
of the community, of the race, of the world, of the universe
itself, they denied their mighty brotherhood, and clung
tenaciously to their idea of living apart, cut off and separate.
They belonged to leagues, societies, clubs and circles, but
the bigger oneness of the race they did not know. Of
greater powers in themselves they had no faintest inkling.
At the first sign of these, they would shuffle, sneer and turn
away, grow frightened even.
The yearning to show them a bigger field of conscious-
ness, to help them towards a realization of their buried
240 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
powers, to let them out of their separate cages, beat through
his being with a passionate sincerity. ... In a hundred
thousand years perhaps! Perhaps in a million! He knew
the slow gait that Nature loved. The trend of an Age is
not to be stemmed by one man, nor by twelve, who see
over the horizon. The futility of trying pained him. Yet,
if no one ever tried ! Oh, for a few swift strokes of awful
sacrifice then freedom!
The words came back to him, and with them, from the
same source, came others: "I sit and I weave. ... I sit
and I weave." . . . Whose, then, was this divine, eternal
patience? . . .
There could be, it seemed, no hurried growth, no instant
escape, no sudden leap to heaven. Slowly, slowly, the Ages
turned the wheel. "Nor can other beings help," he remem-
bered; "they can only tell what their own part is." . . .
And as his clear mind saw the present Civilization like all
its wonderful predecessors, tottering before his very eyes,
threatening in its collapse, the extinction of knowledge so
slowly, painfully, laboriously acquired, the deep heart in
him rose as on wings of wind and fire, questing the stars
above. There was this strange clash in him, as though two
great divisions in his being struggled. A way of escape
seemed just within his reach, only a little beyond the horizon
of his actual knowledge. It fluttered marvellously ; golden,
alight, inviting. Its coming glory brushed his insight. It
was simple, it was divine. There seemed a faint knocking
against the doors of his mental and spiritual understand-
ing. . . .
" 'N. H.' !" he cried, "Bright Messenger !"
He paused a moment and stood still. A new sound lay
suddenly in the night. It came, apparently, from far away,
almost from the air above him. He listened. No, after
all it was only steps. They came nearer. A pedestrian,
muffled to the ears, went past, and the steps died away
on the resounding pavement round the corner. Yet the
sound continued, and was not the echo of the steps just
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 241
gone. It was, moreover, he now felt convinced, in the air
above him. It was continuous. It reminded him of the
musical droning hum that a big bell leaves behind it, while
a suggestion of rhythm, almost of melody, ran faintly
through it too.
Somebody's lines was it Shelley's? ran faintly in his
mind, yet it was not his mind now that surged and rose
to the new great rhythm:
" 'Tis the deep music of the rolling world
Kindling within the strings of the waved air
^olian modulations. . . .
Clear, icy, keen awakening tones
That pierce the sense
And live within the soul. . . ."
He listened. It was a simple, natural, happy sound
simple as running water, natural as wind, happy as the
song of birds. . . .
CHAPTER XX
HE became, again, vividly aware of the power and
presence of "N. H."
He was not far from his house now on the shoulder of
the hill. He turned his eyes upwards, where the three-
quarter moon sailed above transparent cirrus clouds that
scarcely dimmed her light. Like dappled sands of silver,
they sifted her soft shining, moving slowly across the
heavens before an upper wind. The sound continued.
For a moment or two, in the pale light of dawn, he
watched and listened, then lowered his gaze, caught his
breath sharply, and stood stock still. He stared in front
of him. Next, turning slowly, he stared right and left. He
stared behind as well.
Yes, it was true. The lines and rows of crowding houses
trembled, disappeared. The heavy buildings dissolved be-
fore his very eyes. The solid walls and roofs were gone,
the chimneys, railings, doors and porches vanished. There
were no more conservatories. There were no lamp-posts.
The streets themselves had melted. He gazed in amazement
and delight. The entire hill lay bare and open to the sky.
Across the rising upland swept a keen fresh morning
wind. Yet bare they were not, this rising upland and
this hill. As far as he could see, the landscape flowed
waist-deep in flowers, whose fragrance lay upon the air;
dew trembled, shimmering on a million petals of blue and
gold, of orange, purple, violet ; the very atmosphere seemed
painted. Flowering trees, both singly and in groves, waved
in the breeze, birds sang in chorus, there was a murmur
of streams and falling waters. Yet that other sound rose
too, rose from the entire hill and all upon it, a continuous
242
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 243
gentle rhythm, as though, he felt, the actual scenery poured
forth its being in spontaneous, natural expression of sound
as well as of form and colour. It was the simplest, happiest
music he had ever heard.
Unable to deal with the rapture of delight that swept
upon him, he stood stock still among the blossoms to his
waist. Eyes, ears and nostrils were inadequate to report
a beauty which, simple though it was, overbore nerves and
senses accustomed to a lesser scale. Horizons indeed had
lifted, the joy and confidence of fuller life poured in. His
own being grew immense, stretched, widened, deepened, till
it seemed to include all space. He was everywhere, or
rather everything was happening somewhere in him all at
once. ... In place of the heavy suburb lay this garden"
of primal beauty, while yet, in a sense, the suburb itself
remained as well. Only it had flowered . . . revealing the
subconscious soul the bricks and pavements hid. . . . Its
potential self had blossomed into loveliness and wonder.
The sound drew nearer. He was aware of movement.
Figures were approaching; they were coming in his direc-
tion, coming towards him over the crest of the hill, nearer
and nearer. Concealed by the forest of tall flowers, he
watched them come. Yet as Presences he perceived them,
rather than as figures, already borrowing power from them,
as sails borrow from a rising wind. His consciousness ex-
panded marvellously to let them in.
Their stature was conveyed to him, chiefly, at first, by
the fact that these flowers, though rising to his own waist,
did not cover the feet of them, yet that the flowers in the
immediate line of their advance still swayed and nodded,
as though no weight had lain upon their brilliance. The
footsteps were of wind, the figures light as air; they shone;
their radiant presences lit the acres. Their own atmosphere,
too, came with them, as though the landscape moved and
travelled with and in their being, as though the flowers, the
natural beauty, emanated from them. The landscape was
their atmosphere. They created, brought it with them. It
244 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
seemed that they "expressed" the landscape and "were"
the scenery, with all its multitudinous forms.
They approached with a great and easy speed that was
not measurable. Over the crest of the living, sunlit hill
they poured, with their bulk, their speed, their majesty,
their sweet brimming joy. Fillery stood motionless watch-
ing them, his own joy touched with awed confusion, till
wonder and worship mastered the final trace of fear.
Though he perceived these figures first as they topped
the skyline, he was aware that great space also stretched
behind them, and that this immense perspective was in some
way appropriate to their appearance. Born of a greater
space than his "mind" could understand, they flowed to-
wards him across that windy crest and at the same time
from infinitely far beyond it. Above the continuous hum-
ming sound, he heard their music too, faint but mighty,
filling the air with deep vibrations that seemed the natural
expression of their joyful beings. Each figure was a chord,
yet all combining in a single harmony that had volume
without loudness. It seemed to him that their sound and
colour and movement wove a new pattern upon space, a
new outline, form or growth, perhaps a flower, a tree,
perhaps a planet. . . . They were creative. They expressed
themselves naturally in a million forms.
He heard, he saw. He knew no other words to use.
But the "hearing" was, rather, some kind of intimate pos-
session so that his whole being filled and overbrimmed ; and
the "sight" was greater than the customary little irritation
of the optic nerve it involved another term of space. He
could describe the sight more readily than the hearing. The
apparent contradiction of distance and proximity, of vast
size yet intimacy, made him tremble in his hiding-place.
His "sight," at any rate, perceived the approaching figures
all round, all over, all at once, as they poured like a wave
across the hill from far beyond its visible crest. For into
this space below the horizon he saw as well, though, normally
speaking, it was out of sight. Nor did he see one side
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 245
only; he saw the backs of the towering forms as easily
as the portion facing him; he saw behind them. It was
not as with ordinary objects refracting light, the back and
underneath and further edges invisible. All sides were
visible at once. The space beyond, moreover, whence the
mighty outlines issued, was of such immensity that he could
think only of interstellar regions. Not to the little planet,
then, did these magnificent shapes belong. They were of
the Universe. The symbol of his valley, he knew suddenly,
belonged here too.
Silent with wonder, motionless with worship, he watched
the singing flood of what he felt to be immense, non-human
nature-life pour past him. The procession lasted for hours,
yet was over in a minute's flash. All categories his mind
knew hitherto were useless. The faces, in their power,
their majesty, the splendour even of their extent, were both
appalling, yet infinitely tender. They were filled with stars,
blue distance, flowers, spirals of fire, space and air, inter-
woven too, with shining geometrical designs whose intricate
patterns merged in a central harmony. They brought their
own winds with them.
Yet of features precisely, he was not aware. Each face
was, rather, an immense expression, but an expression that
was permanent and could not change. These were im-
mutable, eternal faces. He borrowed from human terms
the only words that offered, while aware that he falsely
introduced the personal into that which was essentially im-
personal.
There stole over him a strange certainty that what he
worshipped was the grandeur of joyful service working
through unalterable law the great compassion of some un-
tiring service that was deathless. . . . He stood within the
Universe, face to face with its elemental builders, guardians,
its constructive artizans, the impersonal angelic powers . . .
the region, the state, he now felt convinced, to which "N.
H." belonged, and whence, by some inexplicable chance,
he had come to occupy a human body. . . . And the sounds
246 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
the flash came to him with lightning conviction were
those essential rhythms which are the kernels of all visible,
manifested forms. . . .
He was not aware that he was moving, that he had left
the spot where he had stood so long, yet for a single
second only and had now reached the corner of a street
again. The flowers were gone, and the trees and groves
gone with them; no waters rippled past; there was no
shining hill. The moon, the stars, the breaking dawn re-
mained, but he saw windows, walls and villas once again,
while his feet echoed on dead stone pavements. . . .
Yet the figures had not wholly gone. Before a house,
where he now paused a moment, the towering, flowing out-
lines were still faintly visible. Their singing still audible,
their shapes still gently luminous, they stood grouped about
an open window of the second story. In the front garden
a big plane tree stirred its leafless branches; the tree and
figures interpenetrated. Slowly then, the outlines grew dim
and shadowy, indistinguishable almost from the objects in
the twilight near them. Chimneys, walls and roofs stole
in upon the great shapes with foreign, grosser details that
obscured their harmony, confused their proportion, as with
two sets of values. The eye refused to focus both at once.
A roof, a chimney obtruded, while sight struggled, fluttered,
then ended in confusion. The figures faded and melted
out. They merged with the tree, the reddening sky, the
murky air close to the house which a street lamp made
visible. Suddenly they were lost they were no longer
there.
But the rhythmical sound, though fainter, still continued
and Fillery looked up.
It was a sound, he realized in a flash, evocative and
summoning. Type called to type, brother to brother, across
the universe. The house before him was his own, and the
open window through which the music issued was the bed-
room of "N. H."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 247
He stood transfixed. Both sides of his complex nature
operated simultaneously. His mind worked more clearly
the entire history of the "case" in that upstairs room
passed through it: he was a doctor. But his speculative,
emotional aspect, the dreamer in him, so greatly daring,
all that poetic, transcendental, half -mystical part which
classed him, he well knew, with the unstable ; all this, long
and dangerously repressed, worked with opposite, if equal
pressure. From the subconscious rose violent hands as of
wind and fire, lovely, fashioning, divine, tearing away the
lid of the reasoning surface-consciousness that confined,
confused them.
To disentangle, to define these separate functions, were
a difficult problem even for the most competent psychiatrist.
Creative imaginative powers, hitherto merely fumbling, half
denied as well, now stretched their wings and soared. With
them came a blinding clarity of sight that enabled him to
focus a vast field of detail with extraordinary rapidity.
Horizons had lifted, perspective deepened and lit up. In a
few brief seconds, before his front door opened, a hundred
details flashed towards a focus and shone concentrated:
The Vision, of course the Figures had now melted into
the night had no objective reality. Suppressed passion
had created them, forbidden yearnings had passed the Cen-
sor and dramatized a dream, set aside yet never explained,
that heredity was responsible for. Both were born of his
lost radiant valley. His Note Books held a thousand similar
cases. . . .
But the speculative dreamer flashed coloured lights against
this common white. The prism blazed. From the inter-
stellar spaces came these radiant figures, from Sirius, im-
mense and splendid sun, from Aldebaran among the happy
Hyades, from awful Betelgeuse, whose volume fills a Mar-
tian orbit. Their dazzling, giant grandeur was of stellar
origin. Yet, equally, they came from the dreadful back
gardens of those sordid houses. Nature was Nature every-
where, in the nebulae as in the stifled plane tree of a city
248 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
court. That he saw them as "figures" was but his own
private, personal interpretation of a prophecy the whole
Universe announced. They were not figures necessarily;
they were Powers. And "N. H." was of their kind.
He suddenly remembered the small, troubled earth
whereon he lived a neglected corner of the universe that
was in distress and cried frantically for help. . . . Alcyone
caught it in her golden arms perhaps; Sirius thundered
against its little ears. . . .
He found his latchkey and fumblingly inserted it, but,
even while he did so, the state of the planet at the moment
poured into his mind with swift, concentrated detail; he
remembered the wireless excitement of the instant and
smiled. Not that way would it come. The new order was
of a spiritual kind. It would steal into men's hearts, not
splutter along the waves of ether, as the "dead" are said
to splutter to the "living." The great impulse, the mighty
invitation Nature sent out to return to simple, natural life,
would come, without "phenomena" from within. . . . He
remembered Relativity that space is local, space and time
not separate entities. He understood. He had just ex-
perienced it. Another, a fourth dimension! Space as a
whole was annihilated ! He smiled.
His latchkey turned.
The transmutation of metals flashed past him all sub-
stance one. His latchkey was upside down. He turned it
round and reinserted it, and the results of advanced
psychology rushed at him, as though the sun rushed over
the horizon of some Eastern clime, covering all with the
light of a new, fair dawn.
In a few seconds this accumulation of recent knowledge
and discovery flooded his state of singular receptiveness
as thinker and as poet. The Age was crumbling, civilization
passing like its predecessors. The little planet lay certainly
in distress. No true help lay within it; its reservoirs were
empty. No adequate constructive men or powers were any-
where in sight. It was exhausted, dying. Unless new help,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 249
powers from a new, an inexhaustible source, came quickly
... a new vehicle for their expression. . . .
And wonder took him by the throat ... as the key
turned in the lock with its familiar grating sound, and the
door, without actual pressure on his part, swung open.
Paul Devonham, a look of bright terror in his eyes, stood
on the threshold.
The expression, not only of the face but of the whole
person, he had seen once only in another human countenance
a climber, who had slipped by his very side and dropped
backward into empty space. The look of helpless bewilder-
ment as hands and feet lost final touch with solidity, the
air of terrible yet childlike amazement with which he began
his descent of a thousand feet through a gulf of air the
shock marked the face in a single second with what he now
saw in his colleague's eyes. Only, with Devonham Fillery
felt sure of his diagnosis the lost hold was mental.
His outward control, however, was admirable. Devon-
ham's voice, apart from a certain tenseness in it, was quiet
enough: "I've been telephoning everywhere. . . . There's
been a a crisis "
"Violence?"
But the other shook his head. "It's all beyond me quite,"
he said, with a wry smile. "The first outbreak was nothing
nothing compared to this." The continuous sound of
humming which filled the hall, making the air vibrate oddly,
grew louder. Devonham seized his friend's arm.
"Listen!" he whispered. "You hear that?"
"I heard it outside in the street," Fillery said. ''What
is it?"
Devonham glared at him. "God knows," he said, 'I don't.
He's been doing it, on and off, for a couple of hours. It
began the moment you left, it seems. They're all about
him these vibrations, I mean. He does it with his whole
body somehow. And" he hesitated "there's meaning in
250 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
it of some kind. Results, I mean," he jerked out with an
effort.
"Visible?" came the gentle question.
Devonham started. "How did you know?" There was
a thrust of intense curiosity in the eyes.
"I've had a similar experience myself, Paul. You opened
the front door in the middle of it. The figures "
"You saw figures?" Devonham looked thunderstruck. In
his heart was obviously a touch of panic.
As the two men stood gazing into each other's eyes a
moment silently, the sound about them increased again,
rising and falling, its great separate rhythmical waves almost
distinguishable. In Fillery's mind rose patterns, outlines,
forms of flowers, spirals, circles. . . .
"He knows you're in the house," said Devonham in a
curious voice, relieved apparently no answer came to his
question. "Better come upstairs at once and see him." But
he did not turn to lead the way. "That's not auditory
hallucination, Edward, whatever else it is!" He was still
clinging to the rock, but the rock was crumbling beneath
his desperate touch. Space yawned below him.
"Visual," suggested Fillery, as though he held out a feeble
hand to the man whose whole weight already hung unsup-
ported before the plunge. His friend spoke no word; but
his expression made words unnecessary: "We must face
the facts," it said plainly, "wherever these may lead. No
shirking, no prejudice of mine or yours must interfere.
There must be no faltering now."
So plainly was *his passion for truth and knowledge legible
in the expression of the shocked but honest mind, that Fillery
felt compassion overpower the first attitude of privacy he
had meant to take. This time he must share. The honesty
of the other won his confidence too fully for him to hold
back anything. There was no doubt in his mind that he
read his colleague's state aright.
"A moment, Paul," he said in a low voice, "before we go
upstairs," and he put his hand out, oddly enough meeting
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER - 251
Devonham's hand already stretched to meet it. He drew
him aside into a corner of the hall, while the waves of sound
surged round and over them like a sea. "Let me first tell
you," he went on, his voice trembling slightly, "my own
experience." It seemed to him that any moment he must
see the birth of a new form, an outline, a "body" dance
across before his very eyes.
"Neither auditory nor visual," murmured Devonham,
burning to hear what was coming, yet at the same time
shrinking from it by the laws of his personality. "Hallu-
cination of any kind, there is absolutely none. There's noth-
ing transferred from your mind to his. This thing is real
original."
Fillery tightened his grip a second on the hand he held.
"Paul," he said gravely, yet unable to hide the joy of
recent ecstasy in his eyes, "it is also new !"
The low syllables seemed borne away and lifted beyond
their reach by an immense vibration that swept softly past
them. And so actual was this invisible wave that behind
it lay the trough, the ebb, that awaits, as in the sea, the
next advancing crest. Into this ebb, as it were, both men
dropped simultaneously the same significant syllables: their
lips uttered together :
"N. H." The wave of sound seemed to take their voices
and increase them. It was the older man who added : "Com-
ing into full possession."
The two stood waiting, listening, their heads turned side-
ways, their bodies motionless, while the soft rhythmical up-
roar rose and fell about them. No sign escaped them for
some minutes ; no .words, it seemed, occurred to either of
them.
Through the transom over the front door stole the grey
light of the late autumn dawn ; the hall furniture was visible,
chairs, hat-rack, wooden chests that held the motor rugs.
A china bowl filled with visiting cards gleamed white beside
it. Soon the milkman, uttering his comic earthly cry, would
clatter down the area staircase, and the servants would be
252 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
up. As yet, however, but for the big soft sound, the house
was perfectly still. This part of it, almost a separate wing,
was completely cut off from the main building. No one
had been disturbed.
Fillery moved his head and looked at his companion.
The expression of both face and figure arrested him. He
had taken off his dinner jacket, and the old loose golfing
coat he wore hung askew; he had one hand in a pocket of
it, the other thrust deep into his trousers. His glasses hung
down across his crumpled shirt-front, his black tie made an
untidy cross. He looked, thought Fillery, whose sense of
the ludicrous became always specially alert in his gravest
moments, like an unhappy curate who had presided over
some strenuous and worrying social gathering in the local
town hall. Only one detail denied this picture the expres-
sion of something mysterious and awed in the sheet-white
face. He was listening with sharp dislike yet eager interest.
His repugnance betrayed itself in the tightened lips, the
set of the angular shoulders ; the panic was written in the"
glistening eyes. There were things in his face he could
never, never tell. The struggle in him was natural to his
type of mind: he had experienced something himself, and
a personal experience opens new vistas in sympathy and
understanding. But the experience ran contrary to every
tenet of theory and practice he had ever known. The mo-
ment of new birth was painful. This was his colleague's
diagnosis.
Fillery then suddenly realized that the gulf between them
was without a bridge. To tell his own experience became
at once utterly impossible. He saw this clearly. He could
not speak of it to his assistant. It was, after all, incom-
municable. The bridge of terms, language, feeling, did not
exist between them. And, again, up flashed for a second
his sense of the comic, this time in an odd touch of memory
Povey's favourite sentence : "Never argue with the once-
born!" Only to older souls was expression possible.
For the first time then his diagnosis wavered oddly. Why,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 253
for instance, did Paul persist in that curious, watchful
stare . . . ?
Devonham, conscious of his chief's eyes and mind upon
him, looked up. Somewhere in his expression was a glare,
but nothing revealed his state of mind better than the fact
that he stupidly contradicted himself :
"You're putting all this into him, Edward," a touch
of anger, perhaps of fear, in the intense whispering voice.
"The hysteria of the studio upset him, of course. If you'd
left him alone, as you promised, he'd have always stayed
LeVallon. He'd be cured by now." Then, as Fillery made
no reply or comment, he added, but this time only the
anxiety of the doctor in his tone: "Hadn't you better go
up to him at once ? He's your patient, not mine, remember !"
The other took his arm. "Not yet," he said quietly.
"He's best alone for the moment." He smiled, and it was
the smile that invariably won him the confidence of even
the most obstinate and difficult patient. He was completely
master of himself again. "Besides, Paul," he went on
gently. "I want to hear what you have to tell me. Some
of it if not all. I want your Report. It is of value. I
must have that first, you know."
They sat on the bottom stair together, while Devonham
told briefly what had happened. He was glad to tell it,
too. It was a relief to become the mere accurate observer"
again.
"I can summarize it for you in two words," he said:
"light and sound. The sound, at first, seemed wind wind
rising, wind outside. With the light, was perceptible heat.
The two seemed correlated. When the sound increased, the
heat increased too. Then the sound became methodical,
rhythmical it became almost musical. As it did so the
light became coloured. Both" he looked across at the
ghostly hat-rack in the hall "were produced by him."
"Items, please, Paul. I want an itemized account."
Devonham fumbled in the big pockets of his coat and
eventually lit a cigarette, though he did not in the least
254 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
want to smoke. That watchful, penetrating stare persisted,
none the less. Amid the anxiety were items of carelessness
that almost seemed assumed.
"Mrs. Soames sent Nurse Robbins to fetch me," he re-
sumed, his voice harshly, as it seemed, cutting across the
waves of pleasant sound that poured down the empty stairs
behind them and filled the hall with resonant vibrations.
"I went in, turned them both out, and closed the door. The
room was filled with a soft, white light, rather pale in tint,
that seemed to emanate from nowhere. I could trace it to
no source. It was equally diffused, I mean, yet a kind of
wave-like vibration ran through it in faint curves and circles.
There was a sound, a sound like wind. A wind was in
the room, moaning and sighing inside the walls a perfectly
natural and ordinary sound, if it had been outside. The
light moved and quivered. It lay in sheets. Its movement,
I noticed, was in direct relation to the wind : the louder the
volume of sound, the greater the movement of the air the
brighter became the light, and vice versa. I could not take
notes at the actual moment, but my memory" a slight
grimace by way of a smile indicated that forgetting was
impossible "is accurate, as you know."
Fillery did not interrupt, either by word or gesture.
"The increase of light was accompanied by colour, and
the increase of sound led into a measure not actual bars,
and never melody, but a distinct measure that involved
rhythm. It was musical, as I said. The colour I'm coming
to that then took on a very faint tinge of gold or orange,
a little red in it sometimes, flame colour almost. The ait
was luminous it was radiant. At one time I half expected
to see fire. For there was heat as well. Not an unpleasant
heat, but a comforting, stimulating, agreeable heat like I
was going to say, like the heat of a bright coal fire on a
winter's day, but I think the better term is sunlight. I had
an impression this heat must burst presently into actual
flame. It never did so. The sheets of coloured light rose
and fell with the volume of the sound. There were curves
and waves and rising columns like spirals, but anything
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 255
approaching a definite outline, form, or shape" he broke
off for a second "figures," he announced abruptly, almost
challengingly, staring at the white china bowl in front of
him, "I could not swear to."
He turned suddenly and stared at his chief with an ex-
pression half of question, half of challenge; then seemed
to change his mind, shrugging his shoulders a very little.
But Fillery made no sign. He did not answer. He laid
one hand, however, upon the banisters, as though pre-
liminary to getting to his feet. The sound about them had
been gradually growing less, the vibrations were smaller,
its waves perceptibly decreasing.
Devonham finished his account in a lower voice, speaking
rapidly, as though the words burnt his tongue :
"The sound, I had already discovered, issued from him-
self. He was lying on his back, the eyes wide open, the
expression peaceful, even happy. The lips were closed.
He was humming, continuously humming. Yet the sound
came in some way I cannot describe, and could not examine
or ascertain, from his whole body, I detected no vibration
of the body. It lay half naked, only a corner of the sheet
upon it. It lay quite still. The cause of the light and
heat, the cause of the movement of air I have called wind
I could not ascertain. They came through him, as it were."
A slight shiver ran across his body, noticed by his com-
panion, but eliciting no comment from him. "I I took his
pulse," concluded Devonham, sinking his voice now to a
whisper, though a very clear one; "it was very rapid and
extraordinarily strong. He seemed entirely unconscious of
my presence. I also" again the faint shiver was perceptible
"felt his heart. It was I have never felt such perfect
action, such power it was beating like an engine, like an
engine. And the sense of vitality, of life in the room every-
where was electrical. I could have sworn it was packed
to the walls with with others." Devonham never ceased
to watch his companion keenly while he spoke.
Fillery then put "his first question.
"And the effect upon yourself?" he asked quietly. "I
25G THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
mean any emotional disturbance? Anything, for instance,
like what you saw in the Jura forests?" He did not look
at his colleague; he stood up; the sound about them had
now ceased almost entirely and only faint, dying fragments
of it reached them. "Roughly speaking," he added, making
a half movement to go upstairs. He understood the inner
struggle going on ; he wished to make it easy for him. For
the complete account he did not press him.
Devonham rose too; he walked over to the china bowl,
took up a card, read it and let it fall again. The sun was
over the horizon now, and a pallid light showed objects
clearly. It showed the whiteness of the thin, tired face. He
turned and walked slowly back across the hall. The first
cart went clattering noisily down the street. At the same
moment a final sound from the room upstairs came floating
down into the chill early air.
"My interest, of course," began Devonham, his hands
in his pockets, his body rigid, as he looked up into his
companion's eyes, "was very concentrated, my mind in-
tensely active." He paused, then added cautiously: "I may
confess, however I must admit, that is, a certain in-
crease of of well, a general sense of well-being, let me
call it. The heat, you see. A feeling of peace, if you
like it better beyond the fear," he blurted out finally,
changing his hands from his coat to his trouser pockets,
as though the new position protected him better from attack.
"Also I somehow expected any moment to see outlines,
forms, something new !" He stared frankly into the eyes
of the man who, from the step above him, returned his
gaze with equal frankness. "And you Edward ?" he asked
with great suddenness.
"Joy? Could you describe it as joy?" His companion
ignored the reference to new forms. He also ignored the
sudden question. "Any increase of ?"
"Vitality, you want to say. The word joy is meaningless,
as you know."
"An intensification of consciousness in any way?"
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 257
But Devonham had reached his limit of possible con-
fession. He did not reply for a moment. He took a step
forward and stood beside Fillery on the stairs. His man-
ner had abruptly changed. It was as though he had come
to a conclusion suddenly. His reply, when it came, was
no reply at all:
"Heat and light are favourable, of course, to life," he
remarked. "You remember Joaquin Mueller: 'the optic
nerve, under the action of light, acts as a stimulus to the
organs of the imagination and fancy.'"
Fillery smiled as he took his arm and they went quietly
upstairs together. The quoting was a sign of returning
confidence. He said something to himself about the absence
of light, but so low it was under his breath almost, and
even if his companion heard it, he made no comment:
"There was no moon at all to-night till well past three, and
even then her light was of the faintest. . . ."
No sound was now audible. They entered a room that
was filled with silence and with peace. A faint ray of morn-
ing sunlight showed the form of the patient sleeping calmly,
the body entirely uncovered. There was an expression of
quiet happiness upon the face whose perfect health sug-
gested perhaps radiance. But there was a change as well,
though indescribable there was power. He did not stir
as they approached the bed. The breathing was regular
and very deep.
Standing beside him a moment, Fillery sniffed the air,
then smiled. There was a perfume of wild flowers. There
was, in spite of the cool morning air, a pleasant warmth.
"You notice anything?" he whispered, turning to his
colleague.
Devonham likewise sniffed the air. "The window's wide
open," was the low rejoinder. "There are conservatories
at the back of every house all down the row."
And they left the room on tiptoe, closing the door behind
them very softly. Upon Devonham's face lay a curious
expression, half anxiety, half pain.
CHAPTER XXI
DR. FILLER Y, lying on a couch in his patient's bed-
room, snatched some four to five hours' sleep, though,
if "snatched," it was certainly enjoyed a deep, dream-
less, reposeful slumber. He woke, refreshed in mind and
body, and the first thing he saw, even before he had time
to stretch a limb or move his head, was two great blue eyes
gazing into his own across the room. They belonged, it
first struck him, to some strange being that had followed
him out of sleep he had not yet recovered full conscious-
ness and the effects of sleep still hovered; then an earlier
phrase recurred : to some divine great animal.
"N. H.," in his bed in the opposite corner, lay gazing
at him. He returned the gaze. Into the blue eyes came
at once a look of happy recognition, of contentment, almost
a smile. Then they closed again in sleep.
The room was full of morning sunshine. Fillery rose
quietly, and performed his toilet in his own quarters, but
on returning after a hurried breakfast, the patient still slept
soundly. He slept on for hours, he slept the morning
through; but for the obvious evidences of perfect normal
health, it might have been a state of coma. The body did
not even change its position once.
He left Devonham in charge, and was on his way to
visit some of the other cases, when Nurse Robbins stood
before him. Miss Khilkoff had "called to inquire after Mr.
LeVallon," and was waiting downstairs in case Dr. Fillery
could also see her.
He glanced at her pretty slim figure and delicate com-
plexion, her hair, fine, plentiful and shiny, her dark eyes
with a twinkle in them. She was an attractive, intelligent,
258
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 259
experienced, young woman, tactful too, and of great use
with extra sensitive patients. She was, of course, already
hopelessly in love with her present "case." His "singing,"
so she called it to Mrs. Soames, had excited her "like a
glass of wine some music makes you feel like that so that
you could love everybody in the world." She already called
him Master.
"Please say I will be down at once," said Dr. Fillery,
watching her for the first time with interest as he remem-
bered these details Paul had told him. The girl, it now
struck him, was intensely alive. There was a gain, an in-
crease, in her appearance somewhere. He recalled also
the matron's remark she was not usually loquacious with
her nurses that "he's no ordinary case, and I've seen a
good few, haven't I ? The way he understands animals and
flowers alone proves that!"
Dr. Fillery went downstairs.
His first rapid survey of the girl, exhaustive for all its
quickness he knew her so well showed him that no out-
ward signs of excitement were visible. Calm, poised, gentle
as ever, the same generous tenderness in the eyes, the same
sweet firmness in the mouth, the familiar steadiness that
was the result of an inner surety all were there as though
the wild scene of the night before had never been. Yet
all those were heightened. Her beauty had curiously in-
creased.
"Come into my study," he said, taking her hand and
leading the way. "We shan't be disturbed there. Besides,
it's ours, isn't it ? We mustn't forget that you are a member
of the Firm."
He was aware of her soft beauty invading, penetrating
him, aware, too, somehow, that she was in her most imper-
sonal mood. But for all that, her nature could not hide
itself, nor could signs of a certain, subtle change she had
undergone fail to obtrude themselves. In a single night,
it seemed, she had blossomed into a wondrous ripe maturity ;
like some strange flower that opens to the darkness, the
260 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
bud had burst suddenly into full, sweet bloom, whose com-
ing only moon and stars had witnessed. There was moon-
light now in her dark mysterious eyes as she glanced at
him ; there was the gold of stars in her tender, yet curious
smile, as she answered in her low voice "Of course, I
always was a partner in the Firm" there was the grace
and rhythm of a wild flower swaying in the wind, as she
passed before him into the quiet room and sank into his
own swinging armchair at the desk. But there was some-
thing else as well.
A detail of his recent Vision slid past his inner sight
again while he watched her. ... "I thought I felt sure
you would come," he said. He looked at her admiringly,
but peace strong in his heart. "The ordeal," he went on
in a curious voice, "would have been too much for most
women, but you" he smiled, and the sympathy in his voice
increased "you, I see, have only gained from it. You've
mastered, conquered it. I wonder" looking away from
her almost as if speaking to himself "have you wholly
understood it ?"
He realized vividly in that moment what she, as a young,
unmarried girl, had suffered before the eyes of all those
prying eyes and gossiping tongues. His admiration
deepened.
She did not take up his words, however. "I've come to
inquire," she said simply in an even voice, "for father and
myself. He wanted to know if you got home all right,
and how Julian LeVallon is." The tone, the heightened
colour in the cheek, as she spoke the name no one had yet
used, explained, partly at least, to the experienced man who
listened, the secret of her sudden blossoming. Also she
used her father, though unconsciously, perhaps. "He was
afraid the electricity the lightning even had" she hesi-
tated, smiled a little, then added, as though she herself
knew otherwise "done something to him."
Fillery laughed with her then. "As it has done to you,"
he thought, but did not speak the words. The need of
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 261
formula was past. He thanked her, adding that it was
sweet yet right that she had come herself, instead of writ-
ing or telephoning. "And you may set your your father's
mind at rest, for all goes well. The electricity, of course,"
he added, on his own behalf as well as hers, "was more
than most of us could manage. Electricity explains every-
thing except itself, doesn't it?"
He was inwardly examining her with an intense and
accurate observation. She seemed the same, yet different.
The sudden flowering into beauty was simply enough ex-
plained. It was another change he now became more and
more aware of. In this way a ship, grown familiar during
the long voyage, changes on coming into port. The decks
and staircases look different when the vessel lies motionless
at the dock. It becomes half recognizable, half strange.
Gone is the old familiarity, gone also one's own former
angle of vision. It is difficult to find one's way about her.
Soon she will set sail again, but in another direction, and
with new passengers using her decks, her corners, hatch-
ways . . . telling their secrets of love and hate with that
recklessness the open sea and sky make easy. . . . And
now with the girl before him he couldn't quite find his
way about her as of old ... it was the same familiar ship,
yet it was otherwise, and he, a new passenger, acknowledged
the freedom of sea and sky.
"And you Iraida?" he asked. "It was brave of you to
come."
She liked evidently the use of her real name, for she
smiled, aware all the time of his intent observation, aware
probably also of his hidden pain, yet no sign of awkward-
ness in her; to this man she could talk openly, or, on the
contrary, conceal her thoughts, sure of his tact and judg-
ment. He would never intrude unwisely.
"It was natural, Edward," she observed frankly in return.
"Yes, I suppose it was. Natural is exactly the right
word. You have perhaps found yourself at last," and again
he used her real name, "Iraida."
262 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"It feels like that," she replied slowly. She paused. "I
have found, at least, something definite that I have to do.
I feel that I must care for him." Her eyes, as she said
it, were untroubled.
The well-known Nayan flashed back a moment in the
words; he recognized to use his simile a familiar corner
of the deck where he had sat and talked for hours beneath
the quiet stars to someone who understood, yet remained
ever impersonal. And the person he talked with came over
suddenly and stood beside him and took his hand between
her own soft gloved ones :
"You told me, Edward, he would need a woman to help
him. That's what you mean by 'natural' isn't it? And
I am she, perhaps."
"I think you are," came in a level tone.
"I know it," she said suddenly, both her eyes looking
down upon his face. "Yes, I suppose I know it."
"Because you need him," his voice, equally secure, made
answer.
Still keeping his hand tight between her own, her dark
eyes still searching his, she made no sign that his blunt
statement was accepted, much less admitted. Instead she
asked a question he was not prepared for: "You would
like that, Edward? You wish it?"
She was so close against his chair that her fur-trimmed
coat brushed his shoulder ; yet, though with eyes and touch
and physical presence she was so near, he felt that she
herself had gone far, far away into some other place. He
drew his hand free. "Iraida," he said quietly, "I wish the
best for him and for you. And I believe this is the best
for him and you." He put his patient first. He was
aware that the girl, for all her outer calmness, trembled.
"It is," she said, her voice as quiet as his own; and after
a moment's hesitation, she went back to her seat again.
"If you think I can be of use," she added. "I'm ready."
A little pause fell between them, during which Dr. Fillery
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 263
touched an electric bell beside his chair. Nurse Robbins
appeared with what seemed miraculous swiftness. "Stifl
sleeping quietly, sir, and pulse normal again," she replied
in answer to a question, then vanished as suddenly as she
had come. He looked into the girl's eyes across the room.
"A competent, reliable nurse," he remarked, "and, as you
saw, a pretty woman." He glanced out of the window.
"She is unmarried." He mentioned it apparently to the
sky.
The quick mind took in his meaning instantly. "All
women will be drawn to him irresistibly, of course," she
said. "But it is not that."
"No, no, of course it is not that," he agreed at once. "I
should like you to see him, though not, however, just
yet " He went on after a moment's reflection, and
speaking slowly: "I should like you to wait a little. It's
best. There has been a a certain disturbance in his
being "
"It's his first experience," she began, "of beauty "
"Of beauty in women, yes," he finished for her. "It is.
We must avoid anything in the nature of a violent
shock "
"He has asked for me?" she interrupted again, in her
quiet way.
He shook his head. "And we cannot be sure that it was
you as you he sought and is affected by. The call he
hears is, perhaps, hardly the call that sounds in most men's
ears, I mean."
The hint of warning guidance was audible in his voice,
as well as visible in his eyes and manner. The laughter
they both betrayed, a grave and curious laughter perhaps,
was brief, yet enough to conceal stranger emotions that
rose like dumb, gazing figures almost before their eyes.
Yet if she knew inner turmoil, emotion of any troubling
sort, she concealed it perfectly.
"I am glad," the girl said presently. "Oh, I am really
264 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
glad. I think I understand, Edward." And, even while
he sat silent for a bit, watching her with an ever-growing
admiration that at the same time marvelled, he saw the
wonder of great questions riding through her face. The
recollection of what she had suffered publicly in the Studio
a few hours before came into his mind again. In these
questions, perhaps, lay the only signs of the hidden storm
below the surface.
"Are there are there such things as Nature-Beings,
Edward?" she asked abruptly. "We know this is his first
experience. Are there then ?"
He was prepared a little for this kind of question by
her eyes. "We have no evidence, of course," he replied;
"not a scrap of evidence for anything of the sort. There
are people, however, so close to Nature, so intimate with
her, that we may say they are strangely, inexplicably
akin."
"Has he a soul a human soul like ours?" she asked
point blank.
"He is perhaps not quite like us. That may be your
task, Iraida," he added enigmatically. He watched her
more closely than she knew.
She appeared to ponder his words for a few minutes;
then she asked abruptly : "And when do you think I ought
to come and see him ? You will let me know ?"
"I will let you know. A few days perhaps, perhaps a
week, perhaps longer. Some education, I think, is neces-
sary first." He gazed at her thoughtfully, and she returned
his look, her dark eyes filled with the wonder that was
both of a child and of a woman, and yet with a security
of something that was of neither. "It will be a a great
effort to you," he ventured with significant and sympathetic
understanding, "after what happened. It is brave and
generous of you " He broke off.
She nodded, but at once afterwards shook her head. She
rose then to go, but Dr. Fillery stopped her. He rose
too.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 265
"Nayan, I now want your help," he said with more
emotion than he had yet shown. "My responsibility, as
you may guess, is not light and "
"And he is in your sole charge, you mean." She had
willingly resumed her seat, and made herself comfortable
with a cushion he arranged for her. He was aware chiefly
of her eyes, for in them glowed light and fire he had never
seen there before but still in their depths.
"Well yes, partly," he replied, lighting a cigarette,
"though Paul is ready with help and sympathy whenever
needed. But the charge, as you call it, is not mine alone:
it is ours."
"Ours!" She started, though almost imperceptibly, as
she repeated his word.
"Subconsciously," he said in a firm voice, "we three
are similar. We are together. We obey half instinctively
the unknown laws of" he hesitated a moment "of some
unknown state of being." He added then a singular sen-
tence, though so low it seemed almost to himself : "Had
we been man and wife, Iraida, our child must have been
like him."
"Yes," she said, leaning forward a little in her chair,
increased warmth, yet no blush, upon her skin. "Yes,
Edward, we three are somehow together in this, aren't
we? Oh, I feel it. It pours over me like a great wind,
a wind with heat in it." Her hands clasped her knee, as
they gazed at one another for a moment's silence. "I feel
it," she repeated presently. "I'm sure of it, quite sure."
She stretched out a spirit hand, as it were, for an instant
across the impersonal barrier between them, but he did
not take it, pretending he did not see it.
"Ours, Nayan," he emphasized, again using the name
that belonged to everyone. "Therefore, you see, I want
you to tell me if you will what you felt, experienced,
perceived in the Studio last night." After watching her
a little, he qualified: "Another day, if you would like to
think it over. But some time, without fail. For my part,
266 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
I will confess though I think you already know it that
I brought him there on purpose "
"To see ray effect upon him, Edward."
"But in his interest, and in the interest of my possible
future treatment. His effect upon yourself was not my
motive. You believe that."
"I know, I know. And I will tell you gladly. Indeed,
I want to."
He was aware, as she said it, that it would be a satis-
faction to her to talk; she would welcome the relief of
confession; she could speak to him as doctor now, as pro-
fessional man, as healer, and this, too, without betraying
the impersonal attitude she evidently wore and had adopted
possibly he wondered? in self-protection. "Tell me
exactly what it is you would like to know, please, Edward,"
she added, and instinctively moved to the sofa, so that he
might occupy the professional swinging chair at the desk.
"What you saw, Nayan," he began, accepting the change
of position without comment, because he knew it helped
her. "What you saw is of value, I think, first."
He had all his usual self-control again, for he was now
on his throne, his seat of power ; his inner attitude changed
subtly; he was examining two patients the girl and him-
self. She sat before him demure, obedient, honest, very
sweet but very strong; if her perfume reached him he did
not notice it, the appeal of her loveliness went past him,
he did not see her eyes. He had a very comely and intel-
ligent young woman facing him, and the glow, as it were,
of an intense inner activity, strongly suppressed, was the
chief quality in her that he noted. But his new attitude
made other things, too, stand out sharply : he realized there
was confusion in her own mind and heart. Her being was
not wholly at one with itself. This impersonal role meant
safety until she was sure of herself; and so far she had
been entirely and admirably non-committal. No girl, he
remembered, could look back upon what she had experienced
THF/ BRIGHT MESSENGER 267
in the Studio, upon what she had herself said and done,
before a crowd of onlookers too, without deep feelings of
a mixed and even violent kind. That scene with a young
man she had never seen before must bring painful
memories ; if it was love at first sight the memories must
be more painful still. But was it a case of this sudden,
rapturous love? What, indeed, were her feelings? What
at any rate was her dominant feeling? She had felt his
appeal beyond all question, but was it as Nayan or as
Iraida that she felt it?
She was non-committal and impersonal, conscious that
therein safety lay until, having become one with herself,
harmonious, she could feel absolutely sure. One hint only
had she dropped it was Nayan speaking that her mother-
ing, maternal instinct was needed and that she must obey
its prompting. She must "care" for him. . . .
Dr. Fillery, meanwhile, though he might easily have
probed and made discoveries without her knowing that
he did so, was not the man to use his powers now. Unless
she gave of her own free will, he would not ask. He would
close eyes and ears even to any chance betrayal or uncon-
scious revelation.
"When you first looked in, for instance? You had just
come in from the street, I think. You opened the door
on your way upstairs. Do you remember?"
She remembered perfectly. "I wanted to see who was
there. You, I think, were chiefly in my thoughts I was
wondering if you had come." Her voice was even, her
eyes quite steady; she chose her next words slowly: "I
saw to my intense surprise a figure of light."
"Shining, you mean? A shining figure?"
She nodded her head, as one little hand put back a stray-
ing wisp of dark hair from her forehead. "A figure like
flame," she agreed. "I saw it quite clearly. I saw every-
thing else quite clearly too the inner room, various people
standing about, the piano, the thick smoke, everything as
268 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
usual. I saw you. You were in the big outer room beyond,
but your face was very distinct. You were staring staring
straight at me."
"True," put in Dr. Fillery; "I saw you in the doorway
plainly."
"In the foreground, by itself apart somehow, though
surrounded by people, was this shining, radiant outline. I
thought it was a Vision the first thing of that sort I had
ever seen in my life."
"That was your very first impression even before you
had time to think?"
"Yes."
"It struck you as unusual?"
"I cannot say more than that. I knew by the light it
was unusual. Then it moved talking to Povey or Kemp-
ster or someone and I realized in a flash who it was. I
knew it must be your friend, the man you had promised
to bring Ju "
"And then ?" he asked quickly, before she could pro-
nounce the name.
"And then "
She stopped, and her eyes looked away from him, not
in the sense that they moved but that their focus changed
as though she looked at something else, at something within
herself, no longer, therefore, at the face in front of her.
He waited; he understood that she was searching among
deep, strange, seething memories; he let her search; and,
watching closely, he presently saw the sight return into
her eyes from its inward plunge.
"And when you knew who it was," he asked very quietly,
"were you still surprised? Did he look as you expected
him to look, for instance ?"
"I had expected nothing, you see, Edward, because I
had not been consciously thinking about his coming. No
mental picture was present in me at all. But the moment
I realized who it was, the light seemed to go I just saw
a young man standing there, with his head turned sideways
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 269
to me. The light, I suppose, lasted for a second only
that first second. As to how he looked? Well, he looked,
not only bigger he is bigger than most men," she went
on, "but he looked" her voice hushed instinctively a little
on the adjective "different."
Her companion made a gesture of agreement, waiting in
silence for what was to follow.
"He looked so extraordinary, so wonderful," she resumed,
gazing steadily into his eyes, "that I I can hardly put it
into words, Edward, unless I use childish language." She
broke off and sighed, and something, he fancied, in her
wavered for a second, though it was certainly neither the
voice nor the eyes. A faint trembling again perhaps ran
through her body. Her account was so deliberately truth-
ful that it impressed him more than he quite understood.
He was aware of pathos in her, of some vague trouble
very poignant yet inexplicable. A breath of awe, it seemed,
entered the room and moved between them.
"The childish words are probably the best, the right ones,"
he told her gently.
"An angel," she said instantly in a hushed tone, "I thought
of an angel. There is no other word I can find. But some-
how a helpless one. An angel out of place."
He looked hard at her, his manner encouraging though
grave ; he said no word ; he did not smile.
"Someone not of this earth quite," she added. "Not a
man, at any rate."
Still more gently, he then asked her what she felt.
"At first I couldn't move," she went on, her voice normal
again. "I must have stood there ten minutes fully, per-
haps longer" her listener did not correct the statement
"when I suddenly recovered and looked about for you,
Edward, but could not see you. I needed you, but could
not find you. I remember feeling somehow that I had lost
you. I tried to call for you in my heart. There was no
answer. . . . Then then I closed the door quietly and went
upstairs to change from my street clothes."
270 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
She paused and passed a hand slowly across her fore-
head. Dr. Fillery asked casually a curious question:
"Do you remember how you got upstairs, Nayan?"
Her hand dropped instantly ; she started. "It's very odd
x you should ask me that, Edward," she said, gazing at him
with a slightly rising colour in her face, an increase of fire
glowing in her eyes; "very odd indeed. I was just trying
to think how I could describe it to you. No. Actually I
do not remember how I got upstairs. All I know is I
was suddenly in my room." A new intensity appeared in
voice and manner. "It seemed to me I flew or that
something carried me."
"Yes, Nayan, yes. It's quite natural you should have
felt like that."
"Is it? I remember so little of what I actually felt. I
wonder I wonder," she went on softly, with an air almost
of talking to herself, "if it will ever come back again what
I felt then "
"Such moments of subliminal excitement," Dr. Fillery
reminded her gently, "have the effect of obliterating memory
sometimes "
"Excitement," she caught him up. "Yes, I suppose it
was excitement. But it was more, much more, than that.
Stimulated I think that's the word really. I felt caught
away somewhere, caught away, caught up as if into the
rest of myself into the whole of myself. I became vast"
she smiled curiously "if you know what I mean in
several places at once, perhaps, is better. It was an immense
feeling no, I mean a feeling of immensity "
"Happy?" His voice was low.
Her eyes answered even before her words, as the memory
came back a little in response to his cautious suggestion.
"A new feeling altogether," she replied, returning his
clear gaze with her frank, innocent eyes that had grown
still more brilliant. "A feeling I have never known be-
fore." She talked more rapidly now, leaning forward a
little in her chair. "I felt in the open air somehow, with
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 271
flowers, trees, hot burning sunshine and sweet winds rush-
ing to and fro. It was something bigger than happiness
a sort of intoxicating joy, I think. It was liberty, but
of an enormous spiritual kind. I wanted to dance I be-
lieve I did dance yes, I'm sure I did, and with hardly
anything on 'my body. I wanted to sing I sang down-
stairs, of course "
"I heard," he put in briefly. He did not add that she
had never sung like that before.
"The moment I came into the room, yes, I remember
I went straight to the piano without a word to anyone."
She reflected a moment. "I suppose I had to. There was
something new in me I could only express by music
rhythm, that is, not language."
"It was natural," Dr. Fillery said again. "Quite natural,
I think."
"Yes, Edward, I suppose it was," she answered, then sank
back in her chair, as though she had told him all there was
to tell.
Dr. Fillery smoked in silence for a few minutes, then
rose and touched the bell as before, and, as before, Nurse
Robbins appeared with the same miraculous speed. There
was a brief colloquy at the door; the woman was gone
again, and the doctor turned back into the room with a
look of satisfaction on his face. All, apparently, was going
well upstairs. He did not sit down, however; he stood
looking out of the window at the drab wintry sky of motion-
less clouds, his back to his companion. It was midday, but
the light, while making all things visible, was not light;
there was no shine, no touch of radiance, no hint of sparkle
beneath the canopy of sullen cloud. The English winter's
day was visible, no more than that. Yet it was not the
English day, nor the clouds, nor the bleak dead atmosphere
he looked at. In a single second his sight travelled far,
far away, covering an enormous interval in space and time,
in condition too. He saw a radiant world of sun-drenched
flowers "tossing with random airs of an unearthly wind";
272 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
he saw a foam of forest leaves shaking and dancing against
a deep blue sky ; he say a valley whose streams and emerald
turf knew not the touch of human feet. . . . The familiar
symbols he saw, but inflamed with new meaning.
"Thank you, Edward, thank you" she was just behind
him, her hands upon his shoulders. "You understand
everything in the world!" she added, "and out of it," but
too low for him to hear.
He came back with an effort, turning towards her. They
were standing level now and very close, eyes looking into
eyes. He felt her breath upon his face, her perfume rose
about him, her lips were moving just in front of him
yet, for a second, he did not know who she was. It was
as though she had not come with him out of that valley,
not come back with him. . . . An insatiable longing seized
him to return and find her, stay with her. The ache of
an intolerable yearning was in his heart, yet a sudden flash
of understanding that brought a bigger, almost an unearthly
joy in its train. At the call of some service, some duty,
some help to be rendered to humanity, the three of them
together he, "N. H.," the girl were in temporary exile
from their rightful home. The scent of wild flowers rose
about him. He suddenly remembered, recognized, and gave
a little start. He had left her behind in the valley Iraida ;
it was Nayan who now stood before him.
He uttered a dry little laugh. "You startled me, Nayan.
I was thinking. I didn't hear you." She had just thanked
him for something oh, yes because he had left her alone
for a moment, giving her time to collect herself after the
long cross-examination.
He took both her hands in his.
"Our patient then isn't it?" he asked in a firm voice,
looking deep into her luminous eyes. He saw no fire in
them now.
"I'll do all I can, Edward."
She returned the pressure of his hands. His keen in-
sight, operating in spite of himself, had read her clearly.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 273
It was mother, child and woman he had always known.
The three, however, were already in process of disentangle-
ment. For the first time during their long acquaintance,
what now stood so close before him was the woman. Yet
behind the woman like an enveloping shadow stood the
mother too. And behind both, again, stood another wild,
gigantic, lovely possibility. Was it, then, the child that he
had left playing in the radiant valley? . . . The child, he
knew, was his always, always, even if the woman was an-
other's. . . . He laughed softly. These, after all, were but
transitory states in human, earthly evolution, concerned with
play, with a production of bodies and so forth. . . .
He had lost himself in her deep eyes. Her gaze lay
all over him, over his entire being, like a warm soft cover-
ing that blessed and healed. She was so close that it seemed
he drew her breath in with his own. She made a movement
then, a tiny gesture. He let go the hands his own had held
so long. He turned from the window and from her. He
was trembling.
"What came later," he resumed in his calm, almost in
his professional voice, "you probably do not remember?"
He went towards his desk. "We need not talk about that.
No doubt, in your mind, it all remains a blurred impres-
sion "
She interrupted, following him across the room. "What
happened, Edward," she said very quietly in her lowest
tone, "/ know. It was all told to me. But my memory,
as you say, is so faint as to be worthless really. What I
do remember is this" she tapped her open palm with two
fingers slowly, as she spoke the words "light, heat, a smell
of flowers and a rushing wind that lifted me into some
kind of exhilarating liberty where I felt the intense joy
of knowing myself somehow free and greater, oh, far
greater than I am now." Then she suddenly whispered
again too low for him to catch "angelic." A smile, as of
glory, rippled across her face.
His voice, coming quickly, was cool, its tone measured :
274 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"And you will come to see him the moment I let you
know," he interrupted abruptly. "It may be a few days,
it may be a week. The instant it seems wise " He was
entirely practical again.
She went to the door with him. "I'll come, of course,"
she answered, as he opened the door.
"I'll let myself out, Edward please. I know the way.
There's no good being a partner if one doesn't know the
way out " She laughed.
"And in, remember!" he called down the little passage
after her, as, with a smile and a wave of the hand, she
was gone.
He went back to his desk, drew a piece of paper towards
him, and jotted a few notes down in briefest fashion. The
expression on his rugged face was enigmatical perhaps, but
the sternness at least was clear to read, and it was this,
combining with an extraordinary tenderness, that drew out
its nobility :
"Intensification of consciousness, involving increased
activity of every centre; hearing, sight, touch and smell,
all affected. Slight exteriorization of consciousness also
took place. No signs of split or divided personality, but
an increase of coherence rather. The central self active
aware of greater powers in time and space, hence sense
of joy, heat, light, sound, motion. Distinct subliminal up-
rush, followed by customary loss of memory later. Her
whole being, together with neglected tracts as yet untouched
by experience her entire being reached simultaneously.
Knew herself for the first time a woman but something
more as well. Unearthly complex, visible.
"Appeal made direct to subconscious self. Unfavourable
reactions none. Favourable reactions increased physical
and mental strength. . . ."
He laid down his pencil as with a gesture of impatience
at its uselessness, and sat back in the chair, thinking.
The effect "N. H." had upon other people was here
again confirmed. That, at least, seemed reasonably clear.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 275
Vitality was increased; heart and mind caught up an extra
gear ; thought leaped, if extravagantly, towards speculation ;
emotion deepened, if ecstatically, towards belief. All the
normal reactions of the system were speeded up and
strengthened. Consciousness was intensified.
More than this with some it was extended, and sub-
liminal powers were set free. In his own experience this
had been the case ; the sight, hearing, even a mild degree of
divination, had opened in his being. It had, similarly, taken
place with Devonham, an unlikely subject, who fought
against acknowledging it. Father Collins, too, he suspected
he recalled his behaviour and strange language had
known also a temporary extension of faculty outside the
normal field. He remembered, again, the Customs official,
Charing Cross Station, and a dozen other minor in-
stances. . . . Indications as yet were slight, he realized, but
they were valuable.
Such abnormal experiences, moreover, each one inter-
preted, respectively, in the terms of his own individual
being, of his own temperament, his own personal shibbo-
leths. The law governing unusual experience operated in-
variably.
Was not his own particular "vision" easily explained?
It might indeed, had it happened earlier, have found a
place in his own book of Advanced Psychology. He re-
flected rapidly: He believed the industrial system lay at
the root of Civilization's crumbling, and that man must
return to Nature therefore his yearnings dramatized them-
selves in personified representations of the beauty of Nature.
He could trace every detail of his Vision to some intense
but unrealized yearning, to some deep hope, desire, dream,
as yet unfulfilled. Always these yearnings and wishes
unfulfilled !
Colour, form and sound again he used them one and
all in his treatment of special cases, and felt hurt by the
ignorant scoffing and denial of his brother doctors. Hence
their present dramatization.
276 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
His immense belief, again, in the results upon the Race
when once the subliminal powers should have reached the
stage where they could be used at will for practical pur-
poses this, in its turn, led him to hope, perhaps to believe,
that this strange "Case" might prove to be some fabulous
bright messenger who brought glad tidings. . . . All, all
was explicable enough!
A smile stole over his face; he began to laugh quietly
to himself. . . .
Yes, he could explain all, trace all to something or other
in his being, yet he knew that the real explanation . . .
well his cleverest intellectual explanation and analysis
were worthless after all. For here lay something utterly
beyond his knowledge and experience. . . .
The note of another searcher recurred to him.
"Each human being has within himself that restless
creative phantasy which is ever engaged in assuaging the
harshness of reality. . . . Whoever gives himself unspar-
ingly and carefully to self-observation will realize that there
dwells within him something which would gladly hide up
and cover all that is difficult and questionable in life, and
thus procure an easy and free path. Insanity grants the
upper hand to this something. When once it is uppermost,
reality is more or less quickly driven out."
But he knew quite well that although he belonged to
what he called the "Unstable," the "something" which Jung
referred to had by no means obtained "the upper hand."
The vista opening to his inner sight led towards a new
reality. . . . Ah! If he could only persuade Paul Devon-
ham to see what he saw . . !
CHAPTER XXII
LADY GLEESON had heard from a Promethean what
had transpired in the studio after she had left, and
her interest was immensely stimulated. These details she
had not known when she had driven her hero home, and
had felt so strangely drawn to him that she had kissed him
in front of Dr. Fillery as though she caressed a prisoner
under the eyes of the warder.
She made her little plans accordingly. It was some days,
however, before they bore fruit. The telephone at last
rang. It was Dr. Fillery. The nerves in her quivered with
anticipation.
Devonham, it appeared, had been away, and her "kind
letters and presents," he regretted to find, had remained
unanswered and unacknowledged. Mr. LeVallon had been
in the country, too, with his colleague, and letters had not
been forwarded. Oh, it would "do him good to see people."
It would be delightful if she could spare a moment to looR
in. Perhaps for a cup of tea to-morrow? No, to-morrow
she was engaged. The next day then. The next day it
was. In the morning arrived a brief letter from Mr. Le-
Vallon himself : "You will come to tea to-morrow. I thank
you. JULIAN LEVALLON."
Yet there was something both in Dr. Fillery's voice, as
in this enigmatic letter, that she did not like. She felt
puzzled somewhere. The excitement of a novel intrigue
with this unusual youth, none the less, was stimulating.
She decided to go to tea. She put off a couple of engage-
ments in order to be ^ree.
A servant let her in. She went upstairs. There was
277
278 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
no sign of Dr. Fillery nor, thank heaven, of Devonham
either. Tea, she saw, was laid for two in the private sitting-
room. LeVallon, seated in an arm-chair by the open
window, looked "magnificent and overpowering," as she
called it. He rose at once to greet her. "Thank you," he
said in his great voice. "I am glad to see you." He said
it perfectly, as though it had been taught him. He took
her hand. Her ravishing smile, perhaps, he did not notice.
His face, at any rate, was grave.
His height, his broad shoulders, his inexperienced eyes
and manner again delighted Lady Gleeson.
The effect upon her receptive temperament, at any rate,
was instantaneous. That he showed no cordiality, did not
smile, and that his manner was constrained, meant nothing
to her or meant what she wished it to mean. He was
somewhat overcome, of course, she reflected, that she was
here at all. She began at once. Sitting composedly on the
edge of the table, so that her pretty silk stockings were
visible to the extent she thought just right, she dangled
her slim legs and looked him straight in the eyes. She was
full of confidence. Her attitude said plainly: "I'm taking
a lot of trouble, but you're worth it."
"Mr. LeVallon," she purred in a teasing yet determined
voice, "why do you ignore me?" There was an air of
finality about the words. She meant to know.
LeVallon met her eyes with a look of puzzled surprise,
but did not answer. He stood in front of her. He looked
really magnificent, a perfect study of the athlete in repose.
He might have been a fine Greek statue.
"Why," she repeated, her lip quivering slightly, "do you
ignore me? I want the truth," she added. She was de-
lighted to see how taken aback he was. "You don't dislike
me." It was not a question.
Into his eyes stole an expression she could not exactly
fathom. She judged, however, that he felt awkward,
foolish. Her interest doubtless robbed him of any savoir
faire he might possess. This talk face to face was a little
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 279
too much for any young man, but for a simple country
youth it was, of course, more than disconcerting.
"I'm Lady Gleeson," she informed him, smiling precisely
in the way she knew had troubled so many other men.
"Angela," she added softly. "You've had my books and
flowers and letters. Yet you continue to ignore me. Why,
please?" With a different smile and a pathetic, childish,
voice: "Have I offended you somehow? Do I displease
you ?"
LeVallon stared at her as though he was not quite certain
who she actually was, yet as though he ought to know,
and that her words now reminded him. He stared at her
with what she called his "awkward and confused" expres-
sion, but which Fillery, had he been present, would have
recognized as due to his desire to help a pitiful and hungry
creature that, in a word, his instinct for service had been
a little stirred.
The scene was certainly curious and unusual.
LeVallon, with his great strength and dignity, yet some-
thing tender, pathetic in his bearing, stood staring
at her. Lady Gleeson, brimming with a sense of easy
victory, sat on the table-edge, her pretty legs well forward,
knowing herself divinely gowned. She had her victim,
surely, at a disadvantage. She felt at the same time a faint
uneasiness she could not understand. She concealed it,
however.
"I suffer here," he said suddenly in a quiet tone.
She gave a start. It was the phrase he had used before.
She thrilled. She hitched her skirt a fraction higher.
"Julian, poor boy," she said then stared at him. "How
innocent you are!" She said it with apparent impulse,
though her little frenzied mind was busy calculating. There
came a pause. He said nothing. He was, apparently, quite
innocent, extraordinarily, exasperatingly innocent.
In a low voice, smiling shyly, she added as though it
cost her a great effort
"You do not recognize what is yours."
280 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"You are sacred!" he replied with startling directness,
as though he suddenly understood, yet was stupidly per-
plexed. "You already have your man."
Lady Gleeson gulped down a spasm of laughter. How
slow these countrymen could be! Yet she must not shock
him. He was suffering, besides. This yokel from the
woods and mountains needed a little coaxing. It was natural
enough. She must explain and teach, it seemed. Well
he was worth the trouble. His beauty was mastering her
already. She loved, in particular, his innocence, his shyness,
his obvious respect. She almost felt herself a magnanimous
woman.
"My man!" she mentioned. "Oh, he's finished with me
long ago. He's bored. He has gone elsewhere. I am
alone" she added with an impromptu inspiration "and
free to choose."
"It must be pain and loneliness to you."
LeVallon looked, she thought, embarrassed. He was
struggling with himself, of course. She left the table and
came up close to him. She stood on tiptoe, so that her
breath might touch his face. Her eyes shone with fire.
Her voice trembled a little. It was very low.
"I choose you," she whispered. She cast down her
shining eyes. Her lips took on a prim, inviting turn. She
knew she was irresistible like that. She stood back a step,
as if expecting some tumultuous onslaught. She waited.
But the onslaught did not come. LeVallon, towering
above her, merely stared. His arms hung motionless.
There was, indeed, expression in his face, but it was not
the expression that she expected, longed for, deemed her
due. It puzzled her, as something entirely new.
"Me!" he repeated, in an even tone. He gazed at her
in a peculiar way. Was it appraisement? Was it halting
wonder at his marvellous good fortune? Was it that he
hesitated, judging her? He seemed, she thought once for
an instant, curiously indifferent. Something in his voice
startled her.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 281
The moment's pause, at any rate, was afflicting. Her
spirit burned within her. Only her supreme belief in her-
self prevented a premature explosion. Yet something
troubled her as well. A tremor ran through her. LeVallon,
she remembered, was LeVallon.
His own thought and feeling lay hidden from her blunt
perception since she read no signs unless they were pain-
fully obvious. But in his mind in his feeling, rather,
since he did not think ran evidently the sudden knowledge
of what her meaning was. He understood. But also, per-
haps he remembered what Fillery had told him.
For a long time he kept silent, the emotions in him
apparently at grips. Was he suddenly going to carry her
away as he had done to that "little Russian poseuse" ? She
watched him. He was intensely busy with what occupied
his mind, for though he did not speak, his lips were moving.
She watched him, impatience and wonder in her, impatience
at his slowness, wonder as to what he would do and say
when at last his simple mind had decided. And again the
odd touch of fear stole over her. Something warned her.
This young man thrilled her, but he certainly was strange.
This was, indeed, a new experience. Whatever was he
thinking about? What in the world was he going to say?
His lips were still moving. There was a light in his face.
She imagined the very words, could almost read them, hear
them. There! Then she heard them, heard some at any
rate distinctly: "You are an animal. Yet you walk up-
right. ..."
The scene that followed went like lightning.
Before Lady Gleeson could move or speak, however, he
also said another thing that for one pulsing second, and for
the first time in her life, made her own utter worthlessness
become appallingly clear to her. It explained the touch of
fear. Even her one true thing, her animal passion, was a
trumpery affair:
"There is nothing in you I can work with," he said with
gentle, pitying sympathy. "Nothing I can use."
282 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Then Lady Gleeson blazed. Vanity instantly restored
self-confidence. It seemed impossible to believe her ears.
What had he done? What had he said that caused the
explosion ? He watched her abrupt, spasmodic movements
with amazemnt. They were so ugly, so unrhythmical. Their
violence was so wasteful.
"You insult me !" she cried, making these violent move-
ments of her whole body that, to him, were unintelligible.
"How dare you? You " The breath choked her.
"Cad," he helped her, so suddenly that another mind not
far away might almost have dropped the word purposely
into his own. "I am so pained," he added, "so pained."
He gazed at her as though he longed to help. "For you, I
know, are valuable to him who holds you sacred to your
husband."
Lady Gleeson simply could not credit her ears. This
neat, though unintentional, way of transferring the epithet
to her who deserved it, left her speechless. Her fury in-
creased with her inability to express it. She could have
struck him, killed him on the spot. Her face changed from
white to crimson like some toy with a trick of light inside it.
She seemed to emit sparks. She was transfixed. And the
shiver that ran through her was, perhaps, for once, both
sexual and spiritual at once.
"You insult me," she cried again helplessly. "You insult
me!"
"If there was something in you I could work with
help " he began, his face showing a tender sympathy
that enraged her even more. He started suddenly, looking
closer into her blazing eyes. "Ah," he said quickly below
his breath, "the fire the little fire!" His expression
altered. But Lady Gleeson, full of her grievance, did not
catch the words, it seemed.
" In my tenderest, my most womanly feelings," she
choked on, yet noticing the altered expression on his face.
"How dare you?" Her voice became shrill and staccato.
Then suddenly mistaking the look in his eyes for shame
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 283
she added: "You shall apologize. You shall apologize at
once !" She screamed the words. They were the only ones
that her outraged feelings found.
"You show yourself, my fire," he was saying softly in
his deep resonant voice. "Oh, I see and worship now; I
understand a little."
His look astonished her even in the middle of her anger
the pity, kindness, gentleness in it. The bewilderment
she did not notice. It was the evident desire to be of service
to her, to help and comfort, that infuriated her. The su-
periority was more than she could stand.
"And on your knees," she yelped ; "on your knees, too !"
Drawing herself up, she pointed to the carpet with an
air of some tragedy queen to whom a lost self-respect came
slowly back. "Down there!" she added, as the gleaming
buckle on her shoe indicated the spot. She did not forget
to show her pretty stockings as well.
The picture was comic in the extreme, yet with a pathetic
twist about it that, had she possessed a single grain of
humour, must have made her feel foolish and shamed until
she died, for his kneeling position rendered her insignifi-
cance so obvious it was painful in the extreme. LeVallon
clasped his hands; his face, wearing a dignity and tender-
ness that emphasized its singular innocence and beauty,
gazed up into her trivial prettiness, as she sat on the edge
of the table behind her, glaring down at him with angry but
still hungry eyes.
"I should have helped and worshipped," his deep voice
thrilled. "I am ashamed. Always you are sacred, won-
derful. I did not recognize your presence calling me. I
did not hear nor understand. I am ashamed."
The strange words she did not comprehend, even if she
heard them properly. For one moment she knew a dread-
ful feeling that they were not addressed to her at all, but the
sense of returning triumph, the burning desire to extract
from him the last ounce of humiliation, to make him suffer
as much as in her power lay, these emotions deadened any
284 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
perceptions of a subtler kind. He was kneeling at her feet,
stammering his abject apology, and the sight was wine and
food to her. Though she could have crushed him with her
foot, she could equally have flung herself in utter aban-
donment before his glorious crouching strength. She
adored the scene. He looked magnificent on his knees. He
was. She believed she, too, looked magnificent.
"You apologize to me," she said in a trembling voice,
tense with mingled passions.
"Oh, with what sadness for my mistake you cannot
know," was his strange reply. His voice rang with sin-
cerity, his eyes held a yearning that almost lent him
radiance. Yet it was the sense of power he gave that
thrilled Lady Gleeson most. For she could not understand
it. Again a passing hint of something remote, incalculable,
touched her sense of awe. She shivered slightly. LeVallon
did not move.
Appeased, yet puzzled, she lowered her face, now pale
and intense with eagerness, towards his own, hardly con-
scious that she did so, while the faint idea again went past
her that he addressed his astonishing words elsewhere.
Blind vanity at once dismissed the notion, though the shock
of its brief disthroning had been painful. She found satis-
faction for her wounded soul. A man who had scorned
her, now squirmed before her beauty on his knees, desiring
her but too late.
"You have some manhood, after all !" she exclaimed, still
fierce, the upper lip just revealing the shining little teeth.
Her power at last had touched him. He suffered. And she
was glad.
"I worship," he repeated, looking through her this time,
if not actually past her. "You are sacred, the source of all
my life and power." His pain, his worship, the aching
passion in him made her forget the insult. Upon that face
upturned so close to hers, she now breathed softly.
"I'll try," she said more calmly. "I'll try and forgive
you just this once." The suffering in his eyes, so close
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 285
against her own, dawned more and more on her. "There,
now," she added impulsively, "perhaps I will forgive you
altogether !"
It was a moment of immense and queenly generosity.
She felt sublime.
LeVallon, however, made no rejoinder; one might have
thought he had not heard ; only his head sank lower a little
before her.
She had him at her mercy now ; the rapt and wonderful
expression in his eyes delighted her. She bent slightly
nearer and made as though to kiss him, when a new idea
flashed suddenly through her mind. This forgiveness was
a shade too quick, too easy. Oh, she knew men. She was
not without experience.
She acted with instant decision upon her new idea, as
though delay might tempt her to yield too soon. She
straightened up with a sudden jerk, touched his cheek with
her hand, then, with a swinging swish of her skirts, but
without a single further word, she swept across the room.
She went out, throwing him a last glance just before she
closed the door. At his kneeling figure and upturned face
she flung this last glance of murderous fascination.
But LeVallon did not move or turn his head ; he made no
sign; his attitude remained precisely as before, face up-
turned, hands clasped, his expression rapt and grave as
ever. His voice continued:
"I worship you for ever. I did not know you in that
little shape. O wondrous central fire, teach me to be aware
of you with awe, with joy, with love, even in the smallest
things. O perfect flame behind all form. . . ."
For a long time his deep tones poured their resonant
vibration through the room. There came an answering
music, low, faint, continuous, a long, deep rhythm running
in it. There was a scent of flowers, of open space, a fra-
grance of a mountain top. The sounds, the perfume, the
touch of cool refreshing wind rose round him, increasing
with every minute, till it seemed as though some energy
286 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
informed them. At the centre he knelt steadily, light glow-
ing faintly in his face and on his skin. A vortex of energy
swept round him. He drew upon it. His own energy was
increased and multiplied. He seemed to grow more
radiant. . . .
A few minutes later the door opened softly and Dr.
Fillery looked in, hesitated for a second, then advanced into
the room. He paused before the kneeling figure. It was
noticeable that he was not startled and that his face wore no
expression of surprise. A smile indeed lay on his lips. He
noticed the scent of flowers, a sweetness in the air as after
rain; he felt the immense vitality, the exhilaration, the
peace and power too. He had made no sound, but the
other, aware of his presence, rose to his feet.
"I disturbed you," said Fillery. "I'm sorry. Shall I go ?"
"I was worshipping," replied "N. H." "No, do not go.
There was a little flash" he looked about him for an instant
as if slightly bewildered "a little sign something I might
have helped but it has gone again. Then I worshipped,
asking for more power. You notice it?" he asked, with a
radiant smile.
"I notice it," said Fillery, smiling back. He paused a
moment. His eye took in the tea-things and saw they were
untouched ; he felt the tea-pot. It was still warm. "Come,"
he said happily; "we'll have some tea together. I'll send
for a fresh brew." He rang the bell, then arranged the
chairs a little differently. "Your visitor ?" he asked. "You
are expecting someone?"
"N. H." looked round him suddenly. "Oh!" he ex-
claimed, "but she has gone !"
His surprise was comical, but the expression on the face
changed in his rapid way at once. "I remember now. Your
Lady Gleeson came," he added, a touch of gentle sadness
in his voice, "I gave her pain. You had told me. I for-
got "
"You did well," Fillery commented with smiling approval
as though the entire scene was known to him, "you did very
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 287
well. It is a pity, only, that she left too soon. If she had
stayed for your worship your wind and fire might have
helped "
"N. H." shook his head. "There is nothing I can work
with," he replied. "She is empty. She destroys only.
Why," he added, "does she walk upright ?"
But Lady Gleeson held very different views upon the
recent scene. This magnificent young male she had put in
his place, but she had not finished with him. No such being
had entered her life before. She was woman enough to see
he was unusual. But he was magnificent as well, and,
secretly, she loved his grand indifference.
She left the house, however, with but an uncertain feel-
ing that the honours were with her. Two days without a
word, a sign, from her would bring him begging to her
little feet.
But the "begging" did not come. The bell was silent, the
post brought no humble, passionate, abandoned letter. She
fumed. She waited. Her husband, recently returned to
London and immensely preoccupied with his concessions,
her maid too, were aware that Lady Gleeson was impatient.
The third, the fourth day came, but still no letter.
Whereupon it occurred to her that she had possibly gone
too far. Having left him on his knees, he was, perhaps,
still kneeling in his heart, even prostrate with shame and
disappointment. Afraid to write, afraid to call, he knew
not what to do. She had evidently administered too severe
a lesson. Her callers, meanwhile, convinced her that she
was irresistible. There was no woman like her in the
world. She had, of course, been too harsh and cruel with
this magnificent and innocent youth from the woods and
mountains. . . .
Thus it was that, on the fourth day, feeling magnanimous
and generous, big-hearted too, she wrote to him. It would
be foolish, in any case, to lose him altogether merely for a
moment's pride:
288 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"DEAR MR. LEVALLON, I feel I must send you a tiny word to
let you know that I really have forgiven you. You behaved, you
know, in a way that no man of my acquaintance has ever done
before. But I feel sure now you did not really mean it. Your forest
and mountain gods have not taught you to understand civilized
women. So I forgive.
"Please forget it all, as I have forgotten it. Yours,
"ANGELA GLEESON.
"P. S. And you may come and see me soon."
To which, two days later, came the reply :
"DEAR LADY GLEESON, I thank you.
JULIAN LEVALLON."
Within an hour of its receipt, she wrote :
"DEAR JULIAN, I am so glad you understand. I knew you would.
You may come and see me. I will prove to you that you are really
forgiven. There is no need to feel embarrassed. I am interested
in you and can help you. Believe me, you need a woman's guidance.
All all I have, is yours.
"I shall be at home this afternoon alone from 4 to 7 o'clock.
I shall expect you. My love to you and your grand wild gods!
Yours, "ANGELA.
"P. S. I want you to tell me more about your gods. Will you ?"
She sent it by special messenger, "Reply" underlined on
the envelope. He did not appear at the appointed hour, but
the next morning she received his letter. It came by
ordinary post. The writing on the envelope was not his.
Either Devonham or Fillery had addressed it. And a
twinge of unaccustomed emotion troubled her. Intuition,
it seems, survives even in the coarsest, most degraded
feminine nature, ruins of some divine prerogative perhaps.
Lady Gleeson, at any rate, flinched uneasily before she
opened the long expected missive :
"DEAR LADY GLEESON, Be sure that you are always under the
protection of the gods even if you do not know them. They are
impersonal. They come to you through passion but not through
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 289
that love of the naked body which is lust. I can work with passion
because it is creative, but not with lust, for it is destructive only.
Your suffering is the youth and ignorance of the young uncreative
animal. I can strive with young animals and can help them. But
I cannot work with them. I beg you, listen. I love in you the
fire, though it is faint and piti-ful. " JULIAN."
Lady Gleeson read this letter in front of the looking-
glass, then stared at her reflection in the mirror.
She was dazed. But in spite of the language she thought
"silly," she caught the blunt refusal of her generous offer.
She understood. Yet, unable to believe it, she looked at her
reflection again then, impulsively, went downstairs to see
her husband.
It really was more than she could bear. The man was
mad, but that did not excuse him.
"He is a beast," she informed her husband, tearing up
the letter angrily before his eyes in the library, while he
watched her with a slavish admiration that increased her
fury. "He is nothing but an animal," she added. "He's
a a "
"Who ?" came the question, as though it had been asked
before. For Sir George wore a stolid and a patient expres-
sion on his kindly face.
"That man LeVallon," she told him. "One of Dr.
Fillery's cases I tried to to help. Now he's written to
me "
George looked up with infinite patience and desire in his
kindly gaze.
"Cut him out," he said dryly, as though he was accus-
tomed to such scenes. "Let him rip. Why bother, anyway,
with 'patients'?"
And he crossed the room to comfort her, knowing that
presently the reaction must make him seem more desirable
than he really was. . . .
"Never in my house again," she sighed, as he approached
her lovingly, his fingers in his close brown beard. "He is
simply a beast an animal !"
CHAPTER XXIII
IT was, perhaps, some cosmic humour in the silent, beau-
tiful stars which planned that Nayan's visit should
follow upon the very heels of Lady Gleeson's call. Those
vast Intelligences who note the fall of even a feather, watch-
ing and guarding the Race so closely that they may be said
in human terms to love it, arranged the details possibly,
enjoying the result with their careless, sunny laughter. At
any rate, Dr. Fillery quickly sent her word, and she came.
To lust "N. H." had not reacted. How would it be with
love?
The beautiful girl entered the room slowly, shyly, as
though, certain of herself, she was not quite certain what
she was about to meet. Fillery had told her she could help,
that she was needed; therefore she came. There was no
thought of self in her. Her first visit to Julian LeVallon
after his behaviour in the Studio had no selfish motive in
it. Her self-confidence, however, went only to a certain
point; in the interview with Fillery she had easily con-
trolled herself; she was not so sure that her self-control
would be adequate now. Though calm outwardly, an in-
expressible turmoil surged within.
She remembered his strength, virility and admiration
as a woman; his ingenuous, childlike innocence, an odd
appealing helplessness in it somewhere, touched the mother
in her. That she divined this latter was, perhaps, the secret
of her power over men. Independent of all they had to
offer, she touched the highest in them by making them feel
they had need of the highest in herself. She obtained thus,
without desiring it, the influence that Lady Gleeson, her
antithesis, lacked. They called her Nayan the Impersonal.
290
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 291
The impersonal in her, nevertheless, that which had with-
stood the cunning onslaught of every type of male success-
fully, had received a fundamental shock. Both her mod-
esty and dignity had been assailed, and in public. Others,
women among them, had witnessed her apparent yielding to
LeVallon's violence and seen her carried in his arms; they
had noted her obvious willingness, had heard her sym-
pathetic cry. She knew quite well what the women thought
Lady Gleeson had written a little note of sympathy the
men as well, and yet she came at Fillery's call to visit, per-
haps to help, the offender who had caused it all.
As she opened the door every nerve she possessed was
tingling. The mother in her yearned, but the woman in her
sent the blood rushing from her heart in pride, in resent-
ment, in something of anger as well. How had he dared to
seize her in that awful way? The outrage and the love
both tore at her. Yet Nayan was not the kind to shirk
self -revelation when it came. She brought some hidden
secret with her, although as yet herself uncertain what that
secret was.
Fillery met her on the threshold with his sweet tact and
sympathy as usual. He had an authoritative and paternal
air that helped and comforted her, and, as she took his hand
at once, the look she gave him was more kind and tender
than she knew. The last trace of self, at any rate, went
out of her as she felt his touch.
"Here I am," she said; "you sent for me. I promised
you."
He replied in a low tone: "There's no need to refer to
anything, of course. Assume I suggest that he has for-
gotten all that happened, and you have forgotten too."
He was aware of nothing but her eyes. The softness,
the delicate perfume, the perfect voice, even the fur and
flowers all were summed up in her eyes alone. In those
eyes he could have lost himself perhaps for ever.
He led her into the room, a certain abruptness in his
manner.
292 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"I shall leave you alone," he whispered, using his pro-
fessional voice. "It is best that he should see you quite
alone. I shall not be far away, but you will find him per-
fectly quiet. He understands that you are" his tone
changed upon the adjective "sacred."
"Sacred," she murmured to herself, repeating the word,
"sacred."
They smiled. And the door closed behind her. Across
the room rose the tall figure of the man she had come to
see, dressed in dark blue, a low white shirt open at the neck,
a blue tie that matched the strong, clear eyes, the wondrous
hair crowning the whole like a flame. The slant of wintry
sunlight by chance just caught the great figure as it rose,
lightly, easily, as though it floated up out of the floor before
her.
And, as by magic, the last uncertainty in her disappeared ;
she knew herself akin to this radiant shape of blue and
gold; knew also mysteriously in a way entirely beyond
her to explain knew why Edward Fillery was dear to her.
Was it that something in the three of them pertained to a
common origin? The conviction, half thought, half feel-
ing, rose in her as she looked into the blue eyes facing her
and took the outstretched hand.
"You strange lost being ! No one will understand you
here. . . ."
The words flashed through her mind of their own accord,
instantly, spontaneously, yet were almost forgotten the same
second in the surge of more commonplace feeling that rose
after. Only the "here" proved their origin not entirely
forgotten. It was the selfless, mothering instinct that now
dominated, but the division in her being had, none the less,
been indicated as by a white piercing light that searched her
inmost nature. That added "here" laid bare, she felt, some
part of her which, with all other men, was clothed and cov-
ered away.
Realized though dimly, this troubled her clear mind, as
she took the chair he offered, the conviction that she must
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 293
tend and care for, even love this strange youth, as though
he were in exile and none but herself could understand him.
She heard the deep resonant voice in the air in front of her :
"I am not lost now," he said, with his radiant smile, and
as if he perceived her thought from the expression in her
face. "I wished to take you away to take you back. I
wish it still."
He stood gazing down at her. The deep tones, the shin-
ing eyes, the towering stature with its quiet strength these,
added to the directness of the language, confused her for
a moment. The words were so entirely unexpected. Fillery
had led her to suppose otherwise. Yet before the blazing
innocence in his face and manner, her composure at once
returned. She found no words at first. She smiled up into
his eyes, then pointed to a chair. Seated he would be more
manageable, she felt. His upright stature was so over-
powering.
"You had forgotten " he went on, obeying her wish
and sitting down, "but I could not know that you had for-
gotten. I apologize" the word sounded oddly on his lips,
as though learned recently "for making you suffer."
"Forgotten !"
A swift intuition, due to some as yet undecipherable kin-
ship, told her that the word bore no reference to the Studio
scene. Some larger meaning, scaled to an immenser map,
came with it. An unrealized emotion stirred faintly in her
as she heard. Her first sight of him as a figure of light
returned.
"But that is all forgiven now," she replied calmly in her
firm, gentle voice. "We need not speak of it. You under-
stand now" she ended lamely "that it is not pos-
sible "
He listened intently, gravely, as though with a certain
effort, his head bent forward to catch every syllable. And
as he bent, peering, listening, he might have been some
other-worldly being staring down through a window in the
sky into the small confusions of earth's affairs.
294 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"Yes," he said, the moment she stopped speaking, "I
understand now. I shall never make you suffer again.
Only I could not know that you had forgotten so com-
pletely."
"Forgotten?" she again repeated in spite of herself, for
the way he uttered the word again stirred that nameless,
deep emotion in her. Their attitudes respectively were
changing. She no longer felt that she could "mother" this
great figure before her.
"Where we belong," he answered in his great quiet voice.
"There," he added, in a way that made it the counterpart of
her own spontaneous and intuitive "here." "It is so easy.
I had forgotten too. But Fillery, dear Fillery, helps me to
remember, and the stars and flowers and wind, these help
me too. And then you when I saw you I suddenly
remembered more. I was so happy. I remembered what
I had left to come among men and women. I knew that
Fillery and you belonged 'there' with me. You, both, had
come down for a little time, come down 'here,' but had
remained too long. You had become almost as men and
women are. I remembered everything when I saw your
eyes. I was so happy in a moment, as I looked at you, that
I felt I must go back, go home. The central fire called me,
called us all three. I wanted to escape and take you with
me. I knew by your eyes that you were ready. You called
to Fillery. We were off."
He paused a moment, while she listened in breathless
silence.
"Then, suddenly, you refused. You resisted. Something
prevented. The Messengers were there when suddenly"
an expression of yearning pain clouded his great eyes a
moment "you forgot again. I forgot too, forgot every-
thing. The darkness came. It was cold. My enemy, the
water, caught me."
He stopped, and passed his hands across his forehead,
sighing, his eyes fixed upon vacancy as with an intense
effort to recover something. "And I still forget," he went
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 295
on, the yearning now transferred from the eyes to the low-
ered voice. "I can remember nothing again. All, all is gone
from me." The light in his face actually grew dimmer as
he slowly uttered the words. He leaned back in his big
arm-chair. Again, it occurred to her, it was as if he drew
back from that window in the sky.
A curious hollow, empty of life, seemed to drop into the
room between them as his voice ceased.
While he had been speaking, the girl watched and listened
with intense interest and curiosity. She remembered he
was a "patient," yet no touch of uneasiness or nervousness
was in her. His strange words, meaningless as they might
seem, woke deep echoes of some dim buried recognition in
her. It amazed and troubled her. This young man, this
sinner against the conventions whom she had come to com-
fort and forgive, held the reins already. What had hap-
pened, what was happening, and how did he contrive it?
She was aware of a clear, divining knowledge in him, a
power, a directness she could not fathom. He seemed to
read her inside out. It was more than uncanny; it was
spiritual. It mastered her.
During his speech he remained very still, without gesture,
without change of expression in his face ; he made no move-
ment ; only his voice deepened and grew rhythmical. And
a power emanated from him she hardly dared resist, much
less deny. His voice, his words, reached depths in her she
scarcely knew herself. He was so strong, so humble, so
simple, yet so strangely peaceful. And suddenly she real-
ized it so far beyond her, yet akin. She became aware that
the figure seated in the chair, watching her, talking, was
but a fraction of his whole self. He was the word oc-
curred to her immense. Was she, too, immense?
More than troubled, she was profoundly stimulated. The
mothering instinct in her for the first time seemed to fail a
little. The woman in her trembled, not quite sure of itself.
But, besides these t\vo, there was another part of her that
listened and felt joy a white, radiant joy which, if she
296 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
allowed, must become ecstasy. Whence came this hint of
unearthly rapture? Again there rose before her the two
significant words : "There" and "Here."
"I do not quite understand," she replied, after a moment's
pause, looking into his eyes steadily, her voice firm, her
young face very sweet ; "I do not fully understand, perhaps.
But I sympathize." Then she added suddenly, with a little
smile: "But, at any rate, I did not come to make you
apologize Julian. Please be sure of that. I came to see
if I might be of any use if there was anything I might do
to make "
His quick interruption transfixed her.
"You came," he said in a distinct, low tone, "because you
love me and wish me to love you. But we do love already,
you, dear Fillery, and I only our love is in that great
Service where we all three belong. It is not of this it is
not here " making an impatient gesture with his hand to
indicate his general surroundings.
He broke off instantly, noticing the expression in her face.
She had realized suddenly, as he spoke, the blind fury of
reproduction that sweeps helpless men and women every-
where into union, then flings them aside exhausted, useless,
its purpose accomplished. Though herself never yet caught
by it, the vivid realization made her turn from life with
pity and revulsion. Yet were these thoughts her own?
Whence did they come, if not? And what was this new
blind thing straining in her mind for utterance, bursting
upwards like a flame, threatening to split it asunder even
in its efforts to escape? "What are these words we use?"
darted across her. "What do they mean ? What is it we're
talking about really? I don't know quite. Yet it's real, yes,
real and true. Only it's beyond our words. It's something
I know, but have forgotten. . . ." That was his word
again: "Forgotten"! While they used words together,
something in her went stumbling, groping, thrusting towards
a great shining revelation for which no words existed. And
a strange, deep anguish seized her suddenly.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 297
"Oh!" he cried, "I make you suffer again. The fire
leaves you. You are white. I I will apologize" he
slipped on to his knees before her "but you do not under-
stand. It was not your sacredness I spoke of." Already
on his knees before her, but level with her face owing to his
great stature, gazing into her eyes with an expression of
deep tenderness, humility, almost suffering, he added: "It
was our other love, I meant, our great happy service, the
thing we have forgotten. You came, I thought, to help me
to remember that. The way home I saw you knew." The
light streamed back into his face and eyes.
The tumult and confusion in the girl were natural
enough. Her resourcefulness, however, did not fail her at
this curious and awkward moment. His words, his conduct
were more than she could fathom, yet behind both she
divined a source of remote inspiration she had never known
before in any "man." The beauty and innocence on the
face arrested her faculties for a second. That nameless
emotion stirred again. A glimmer of some faint, distant
light, whose origin she could not guess, passed flickering
across her inner tumult. Some faculty she could not name,
at any rate, blew suddenly to white heat in her. This youth
on his knees before her had spoken truth. Without know-
ing it even herself, she had given him her love, a virgin love,
a woman's love hitherto unawakened in her by any other
man, but a love not of this earth quite because of him
who summoned it into sudden flower.
Yet at the same time Ke denied the need of it ! He spoke
of some marvellous great shining Service that was different
from the love of man and woman.
This too, as some forgotten, lost ideal, she knew was also
true.
Her mind, her heart, her experience, her deepest womanly
nature, these, she realized in a glowing instant of extra-
ordinary divination, we r e at variance in her. She trembled ;
she knew not what to do or say or think. And again, it
came to her, that the visible shape before her was but the
298 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
insignificant fraction of a being whose true life spread
actively and unconfined through infinite space.
She then did something that was prompted, though she
did not know it thus, by her singleness of heart, her purity
of soul and body, her unique and natural instinct to be of
use, of service, to others the accumulated practice and
effort of her entire life provided the action along a natural
line of least resistance: she bent down and put her arm
and hand round his great shoulder. She lowered her face.
She kissed him most tenderly, with a mother's love, a
woman's secret passion perhaps, but yet with something else
as well she could not name an unearthly yearning for a
greater Ideal than anything she had yet known on earth
among humanity. ... It was the invisible she kissed.
And LeVallon, she realized with immense relief, justified
her action, for he did not return the kiss. At the same
time she had known quite well it would be thus. That kiss
trembled, echoed, in her own greater unrealized self as well.
"What is it," she whispered, a mysterious passion surging
up in her as she raised him to his feet, "that you remember
and wish to recover for us all ? Can you tell me ? What
is this great, happy, deathless service that we have forgot-
ten?" Her voice trembled a little. An immense sense of
joy, of liberty, shook out its sunlit wings.
His expression, as he rose, was something between that
of a child and a faithful yearning animal, but of a "divine
animal," though she did not know the phrase. Its purity,
its sweetness, its power it was the power she noticed
chiefly were superb.
"I cannot tell, I cannot remember," his voice said softly,
for all its resonant, virile depth. "It is some state we all
have come from into this. We are strangers here. This
brain and intellect, this coarse, thick feeling, this selfish-
ness, this want of harmony and working together all this
is new and strange to us. It is of blind and clumsy chil-
dren. This love of one single person for one other single
person it is so pitiful. We three have come into this for
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 299
a time, a little time. It is pain and misery. It is prison.
Each one works only for himself. There is no joy. They
know nothing of our great Service. We cannot show them.
Let us go back "
Another pause fell between them, another of those
singular hollows she had felt before. But this time the
hollow was not empty. It was brimmed with surging life.
The gulf between her earthly state and another that was
nameless, a gulf usually unbridgeable, the fixed gulf, as an
old book has it, which may not be crossed without danger to
the Race, for whose protection it exists this childhood
simile occurred to her. And a sense of awe stirred in her
being. It was the realization that this gulf or hollow now
brimmed with life, that it could be crossed, that she might
step over into another place the sense of awe rose thence,
yet came certainly neither from the woman nor the mother
in her.
"I am of another place," Le Vallon went on, plucking the
thought naked from her inmost being. "For I am come
here recently, and the purpose of my coming is hidden from
me, and memory is dark. But it is not entirely dark. Some-
times I half remember. Stars, flowers, fire, wind, women
here and there bring light into the darkness. Oh," he
cried suddenly, "how wonderful they are how wonderful
you are on that account to me!"
The voice held a strange, evoking power perhaps. A
thousand yearnings she had all her life suppressed (because
they interfered with her duty as she conceived it here
and now, fluttered like rising flames within her as she lis-
tened. His voice now increased in volume and rhythm,
though still quiet and low-pitched ; it was as if a great wind
poured behind it with tremendous vibrations, through it,
lifting her out of a limited, cramped, everyday self. A
delicious warmth of happy comfort, of acceptance, of en-
thusiasm glowed in her. And LeVallon's face, she saw, had
become radiant, almost as though it emanated light. This
light entered her being and brought joy again.
300 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"Joy !" he said, reading her thought and feeling. "Joy 1"
"Joy! Another place!" she heard herself repeating, her
eyes now fixed upon his own.
She felt lighter, caught up and away a little, lifted above
the solid earth ; as if it was heat that lightened, and wind that
bore her upwards. Everything in her became intensified.
"Another state, another place" her voice seemed to bor-
row something of the rhythm in his own, though she did
not notice it "but not away from earth, this beautiful
earth?" With a happy smile she added, "I love the dear
kind earth, I love it."
The light on his face increased:
"The earth we love and serve," he said, "is beautiful, but
here" he looked about him round the room, at the trees
waving through the window, at the misty sky above draping
the pale light of the sun "here I am on the surface only.
There is confusion and struggle. Everything quarrels
against everything else. It is discord and disorder. There
is no harmony. Here, on the surface, everything is separate.
There is no working together. It is all pain, each little part
fighting for itself. Here I am outside there is no joy."
It was the phrase "I am outside" that flashed something
more of his meaning into her. His full meaning lay beyond
actual words perhaps ; but this phrase fell like a shock into
that inmost self which she had deliberately put away.
"You are from inside, yes," she exclaimed, marvelling
afterwards that she had said it; "within nearer to the
centre !"
And he took the abrupt interruption as though they both
understood and spoke of the same one thing together, hav-
ing found a language born of similar great yearnings and
of forgotten knowledge, times, states, conditions, places.
"I come," he said, his voice, his bright smile alive with
the pressure of untold desire, "from another place that is
yes inside, nearer to the centre. I have forgotten almost
everything. I remember only that there was harmony, love,
work and happiness all combined in the perfect liberty of
our great service. We served the earth. We helped the
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 301
life upon it. There was no end, no broken fragments, no'
failure." The voice touched chanting. "There was no
death."
He rose suddenly and came over to her side, and in-
stinctively the girl stood up. What she felt and thought as
she heard the strange language he used, she hardly knew
herself. She only knew in that moment an immense desire
to help her kind, an intensification of that great ideal of
impersonal service which had always been the keynote of
her life. This became vividly stimulated in her. It rose
like a dominating, overmastering passion. The sense of in-
effectual impotence, of inability to accomplish anything of
value against the stolid odds life set against her, the useless-
ness of her efforts with the majority, in a word, seemed
brushed away, as though greater powers of limitless extent
were now at last within her reach. This blazed in her like
fire. It shone in her big dark eyes that looked straight into
his as they stood facing one another.
"And that service," he went on in his deep vibrating,
half-singing tone, "I see in dear Fillery and in you. I know
my own kind. We three, at least, belong. I know my own."
The voice seemed to shake her like a wind.
At the last two words her soul leaped within her. It
seemed quite natural that his great arm should take her
breast and shoulder and that his lips should touch her cheek
and hair. For there was worship in both gestures.
"Our greater service," she whispered, trembling, "tell me
of that. What is it?" His touch against her was like the
breath of fire.
Her womanly instincts, so-called, her maternal love, her
feminine impulses deserted her. She was aware solely at
that moment of the proximity of a being who called her to
a higher, to, at any rate, a different state, to something
beyond the impoverished conditions of humanity as she had
hitherto experienced it, to something she had ever yearned
and longed for without knowing what it was. An extraor-
dinary sense of enormous liberty swept over her again.
His voice broke and the rhythm failed.
302 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"I cannot tell you," he replied mournfully, the light fad-
ing a little from his eyes and face. "I have forgotten. That
other place is hidden from me. I am in exile," he added
slowly, "but with you and Fillery." His blue eyes filled
with moisture; the expression of troubled loneliness was
one she had never seen before on any human face. "I suf-
fer," he added gently. "We all suffer."
And, at the sight of it, the yearning to help, to comfort,
to fulfil her role as mother, returned confusingly, and rose
in her like a tide. He was so big and strong and splendid.
He was so helpless. It was, perhaps, the innocence in the
great blue eyes that conquered her for the first time in her
life.
But behind, beside the mother in her, stirred also the
natural woman. And beyond this again, rose the accu-
mulated power of the entire Race. The instinct of all the
women of the planet since the world began drove at her.
Not easily may an individual escape the deep slavery of the
herd.
The young girl wavered and hestitated. Caught by so
many emotions that whirled her as in a vortex, the direc-
tion of the resultant impetus hung doubtful for some time.
During the half hour's talk, she had entered deeper water
than she had ever dared or known before. Life hitherto,
so far as men were concerned, had been a simple and an
easy thing that she had mastered without difficulty. Her
real self lay still unscarred within her. Freely she had given
the mothering care and sympathy that were so strong in
her, the more freely because the men who asked of her were
children, one and all, children who needed her, but from
whom she asked nothing in return. If they fell in love, as
they usually did, she knew exactly how to lift their emo-
tion in a way that saved them pain while it left herself un-
touched. None reached her real being, which thus remained
unscathed, for none offered the lifting glory that she craved.
Here, for the first time facing her, stood a being of
another type ; and that unscathed self in her went trembling
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 303
at the knowledge. Here was a power she could not play
with, could not dominate, but a power that could play with
her as easily as the hurricane with the flying leaf. It was
not his words, his strange beauty, his great strength that
mastered her, though these brought their contribution
doubtless. The power she felt emanated unconsciously
from him, and was used unconsciously. It was all about
him. She realized herself a child before him, and this real-
ization sweetened, though it confused her being. He so
easily touched depths in her she had hardly recognized her-
self. He could so easily lift her to terrific heights. . . .
Various sides of her became dominant in turn. . . .
The inmost tumult of a good woman's heart is not given
to men to read, perhaps, but the final impetus resulting
from the whirlpool tossed her at length in a very definite
direction. She found her feet again. The determining
factor that decided the issue of the struggle was a small and
very human one. He appealed to the woman in her, yet
what stirred the woman was the vital and afflicting factor
that he did not need her.
He wished to help, to lift her towards some impersonal
ideal that remained his secret. He wished to give he
could give while she, for her part, had nothing that he
needed. Indeed, he asked for nothing. He was as inde-
pendent of her as she was independent of these other men.
And the woman, now faced for the first time with this
entirely new situation, decided automatically that he
should learn to need her. He must. Though she had
nothing that he wanted from her, she must on that very
account give all. The sacrifice which stands ready for the
fire in every true feminine heart was lighted there and then.
She had found her master and her god. Half measures
were not possible to her. She stood naked at the altar. But
in her sacrifice he, too, the priest, the deity, the master, he
also should find love.
Such is the woman's power, however, to conceal from
herself the truth, that she did not recognize at first what
304 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
this decision was. She disguised it from her own heart, yet
quite honestly. She loved him and gave him all she had to
give for ever and ever: even though he did not ask nor
need her love. This she grasped. Her role must be one of
selfless sacrifice. But the deliberate purpose behind her
real decision she disguised from herself with complete suc-
cess. It lay there none the less, strong, vital, very simple.
She would teach him love.
Alone of all men, Edward Fillery could have drawn up
this motive from its inmost hiding place in her deep sub-
conscious being, and have made it clear to her. Dr. Fillery,
had he been present, would have discerned it in her, as,
indeed, he did discern it later. He had, for that matter,
already felt its prophecy with a sinking heart when he
planned bringing them together: Iraida might suffer at
LeVallon's hands.
But Fillery, apparently, was not present, and Nayan
Khilkoff remained unaware of self-deception. LeVallon
"needs your care and sympathy; you can help him," she
remembered. This she believed, and Love did the rest.
So intricate, so complex were the emotions in her that
she realized one thing only she must give all without
thought of self. "When half gods go the gods arrive" sang
in her heart. She was a woman, one of a mighty and in-
numerable multitude, and collective instinct urged her
irresistibly. But it hid at the same time with lovely care
the imperishable desire and intention that the arriving god
should must love her in return.
The youth stood facing her while this tumult surged
within her heart and mind. Outwardly calm, she still gazed
into the clear blue eyes that shone with moisture as he
repeated, half to himself and half to her:
"We are in exile here; we suffer. We have forgotten."
His hands were stretched towards her, and she took them
in her own and held them a moment.
"But you and I," he went on, "you and I and Fillery
shall remember again soon. We shall know why we are
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 305
here. We shall do our happy work together here. We shall
then return escape."
His deep tones filled the air. At the sound of the other
name a breath of sadness, of disappointment, touched her
coldly. The familiar name had faded. It was, as always,
dear. But its potency had dimmed. . . .
The sun was down and a soft dusk covered all. A faint
wind rustled in the garden trees through the open window.
"Fillery," she murmured, "Edward Fillery! He
loved me. He has loved me always."
The little words they sounded little for the first time
she uttered almost in a whisper that went lost against the
figure of LeVallon towering above her through the twilight.
"We are together," his great voice caught her whisper in
the immense vibration, drowning it. "The love of our
happy impersonal service brings us all together. We have
forgotten, but we shall remember soon."
It seemed to her that he shone now in the dusky air.
Light came about his face and shoulders. An immense
vitality poured into her through his hands. The sense of
strange kinship was overpowering. She felt, though not
in terms of size or physical strength, a pigmy before him,
while yet another thing rose in gigantic and limitless glory
as from some inner heart he quickened in her. This sense
of exaltation, of delirious joy that tempted sweetly, came
upon her. He must love her, need her in the end. . . .
"Julian," she murmured softly, drawn irresistibly closer.
"The gods have brought you to me." Her feet went nearer
of their own accord, but there was no movement, no
answering pressure, in the hands she held. "You shall
never know loneliness again, never while I am here. The
gods your gods have brought us together."
"Our gods," she heard his answer, "are the same." The
words trembled against her actual breast, so close she was
now leaning against him. "Even if lost, it is they who sent
us here. I know their messengers "
306 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
He broke off, standing back from her, dropping her
hands, or, rather, drawing his own away.
"Hark!" he cried. The voice deep and full, yet without
loudness, thrilled her. She watched him with terror and
amazement, as he turned to the open window, throwing his
arms out suddenly to the darkening sky against which the
trees loomed still and shapeless. His figure was wrapped
in a faint radiance as of silvery moonlight. She was aware
of heat about her, a comforting, inspiring warmth that per-
vaded her whole being, as from within. The same moment
the bulk of the big tree shook and trembled, and a steady
wind came pouring into the room. It seemed to her the
wind, the heat, poured through that tree.
And the inner heart in her grew clear an instant. This
wind, this heat, increased her being marvellously. The
exaltation in her swept out and free. She saw him, dropped
from alien skies upon the little teeming earth. The sense
of his remoteness from the life about them, of her own
remoteness too, flashed over her like wind and fire. An
immense ideal blazed, then vanished. It flamed beyond her
grasp. It beckoned with imperishable loveliness, then faded
instantly. Wind caught it up once more. With the fire an
overpowering joy rose in her.
"Julian!" she cried aloud. "Son of Wind and Fire!"
At the words, which had come to her instinctively, he
turned with a sudden gesture she could not quite interpret,
while there broke upon his face a smile, strange and lovely,
that caught up the effect of light about him and seemed to
focus in his brilliant eyes. His happiness was beyond all
question, his admiration, wonder too ; yet the quality she
chiefly looked and expected was not there.
She chilled. The joy, she was acutely conscious, was
not a personal joy.
"You," he said gently, happily, emphasizing the word,
"you are not pitiful," and the rustle of the shaking trees
outside the window merged their voice in his and carried
it outward into space. It was as if the wind itself had
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 307
spoken. Across the garden dusk there shot a sudden effect
of light, as though a flame had flickered somewhere in the
sky, then passed back into the growing night There was a
scent of flowers in the air. "You," he cried, with an exulta-
tion that carried her again beyond herself. "You are not
pitiful."
"Julian !" she stammered, longing for his arms. She
half drew away. The blood flowed down and back in her.
"Not pitiful!" she repeated faintly.
For it was to her suddenly as if that sighing wind that
entered the room from the outer sky had borne him away
from her. That wind was a messenger. It came from that
distant state, that other region where he belonged, a state, a
region compared to which the beings of earth were trump-
ery and tinsel-dressed. It came to remind him of his home
and origin. The little earth, the myriad confused figures
struggling together on its surface, he saw as "pitiful."
From that window in the sky whence he looked down he
watched them. . . . !
She knew the feeling in him, knew it, because some part
of her, though faint and deeply hidden, was akin. Yet she
was not wholly "pitiful." He had discerned in her this
faint, hidden strain of vaster life, had stirred and strength-
ened it by his words, his presence. Yet it was not vital
enough in her to stand alone. When wind and fire, his
elements, breathed forth from it, she was afraid.
"You are not pitiful," he had said, yet pitiful, for all that,
she knew herself to be. On that breath of sighing wind he
swept away from her, far, far away where, as yet, she could
not follow. And her dream of personal love swept with it.
Some ineffable hint of a divine, impersonal glory she had
known went with him from her heart. The personal was
too strong in her. It was human love she desired both to
give and ask.
Unspoken words flared through her heart and being:
"Julian, you have no soul, no human soul. But I will give
you one, for I will teach you love "
308 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
He turned upon her like a hurricane of windy fire.
"Soul !" he cried, catching the word out of her naked
heart. "Oh, be not caught with that pitiful delusion. It is
this idea of soul that binds you hopelessly to selfish ends
and broken purposes. This thing you call soul is but the
dream of human vanity and egoism. It is worse than love.
Both bind you endlessly to limited desires and blind ambi-
tions. They are of children."
He rose, like some pillar of whirling flame and wind,
beside her.
"Come out with me," he cried, "come back! You teach
me to remember! Our elemental home calls sweetly to
us, our elemental service waits. We belong to those vast
Powers. They are eternal. They know no binding and
they have no death. Their only law is service, that mighty
service which builds up the universe. The stars are with
us, the nebulae and the central fires are their throne and
altar. The soul you dream of in your little circle is but an
idle dream of the Race that ties your feet lest you should
fly and soar. The personal has bandaged all your eyes.
Nayan, come back with me. You once worked with me
there you, I and Fillery together."
His voice, though low, had that which was terrific in it.
The volume of its sound appalled her. Its low vibrations
shook her heart.
"Soul," she said very softly, courage sure in her, but tears
close in her burning eyes, "is my only hope. I live for it.
I am ready to die for it. It is my life !"
He gazed at her a moment with a tenderness and sympathy
she hardly understood, for their origin lay hidden beyond
her comprehension. She knew one thing only that he
looked adorable and glorious, a being brought by the wise
powers of life, whatever these might be, into the keeping
of her love and care. The mother and the woman merged
in her. His redemption lay within her gentle hands, if it
lay at the same time upon an altar that was her awful sacri-
fice.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 309
"Son of wind and fire !" she cried, though emotion made
her voice dwindle to a breathless whisper. "You called to
my love, yet my love is personal. I have nothing else to
give you. Julian, come back ! O stay with me. Your wind
and fire frighten, for they take you away. Service I know,
but your service O what is it? For it leaves the bed, the
hearthstone cold "
She stopped abruptly, wondering suddenly at her own
words. What was this rhythm that had caught her mind
and heart into an unknown, a daring form of speech?
But the wind ran again through the open window flutter-
ing the curtains and the skirts about her feet. It sighed
and whispered. It was no earthly wind. She saw him
once again go from her on its quiet wings. He left her
side, he left her heart. And an icy realization of his loneli-
ness, his exile, stirred in her. . . . For a moment, as she
looked up into his shining face silhouetted in the dusk
against the window, there rose tumultuously in her that
maternal feeling which had held all men safely at a distance
hitherto. Like a wave, it mastered her. She longed to
take him in her arms, to shield him from a world that was
not his, to bless and comfort him with all she had to give,
to have the right to brush that wondrous hair, to open
those lids at dawn and close them with a kiss at night.
This ancient passion rose in her, bringing, though she did
not recognize it, the great woman in its train. She walked
up to him with both hands outstretched :
"All my nights," she said, with no reddening of the
cheek, "are as our wedding night !"
He heard, he saw, but the words held no meaning for
him.
"Julian! Stay with me stay here!" She put her arms
about him.
"And forget !" he cried, an inexpressible longing in
his voice. He bent, none the less, beneath the pressure of
her clinging arms ; he lowered his face to hers.
"I will teach you love," she murmured, her cheek against
310 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
his own. "You do not know how sweet, how wonderful
it is. All your strange wisdom you shall show me, and I
will learn willingly, if only I may teach you love."
"You would teach me to forget," he said in a voice of
curious pain, "just as you are forgetting now."
He gently unclasped her hands from about his neck, and
went over to the open window, while she sank into a chair,
watching him. She again heard the wind, but again no
common, earthly wind, go singing past the walls.
"But / will teach you to remember," he said, his great
figure half turning towards her again, his voice sounding
as though it were in that sighing breath of wind that passed
and died away into the silence of the sky.
The strange difficulty, the immensity, of her self-
appointed task, grew suddenly crystal clear in her mind.
Amid the whirling, aching pain and yearning that she felt
it stood forth sharp and definite. It was imperious. She
loved, and she must teach him love. This was the one
thing needful in his case. Her own deep, selfless heart
would guide her.
There was pain in her, but there was no fear. Above
the conventions she felt herself, naked and unashamed.
The sense of a new immense liberty he had brought lifted
her into a region where she could be natural without offence.
He had flung wide the gates of life, setting free those
strange, ultimate powers which had lain hidden and un-
realized hitherto, and with them was quickened, too, that
mysterious and awful hint which, beckoning ever towards
some vaster life, had made the world as she found it un-
satisfactory, pale, of meagre value.
As the strange drift of wind passed off into the sky,
she moved across the room and stood beside him, its dying
chant still humming in her ears. That song of the wind,
she understood, was symbolic of what she had to fight, for
his being, though linked to a divine service she could not
understand, lay in Nature and apart from human things :
"Think, Julian," she murmured, her face against his
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 311
shoulder so that the sweet perfume as of flowers he exhaled
came over her intoxicatingly, "think what we could do
together for the world for all these little striving ignorant
troubled people in it for everybody! You and I together
working, helping, lifting them all up !"
He made no movement, and she took his great arm and
drew it round her neck, placing the hand against her cheek.
He looked down at her then, his eyes peering into her face.
"That," he said in a deep, gentle voice that vibrated
through her whole body, "yes, that we will do. It is the
service the service of our gods. It is why I called you.
From the first I saw it in you, and in "
Before he could speak the name she kissed his lips, pulling
his head lower in order to reach them: "Think, Julian,"
she whispered, his eyes so close to hers that they seemed
to burn them, "think what our child might be!"
The wind came back across the tossing trees with a rush
of singing. Her hair fluttered across their two faces, as
it entered the room, drove round the inner walls, then, with
a cry, flew out again into the empty sky. She felt as if
the wind had answered her, for other answer there came
none. Far away in the spaces of that darkening sky the
wind rushed sailing, sailing with its impersonal song of
power and of triumph. . . . She did not remember any
further spoken words. She remembered only, as she went
homewards down the street, that Julian had opened th
door upon some unspoken understanding that she had lost
him because she dared not follow recklessly where he led,
and that the steady draught, it seemed, had driven forcibly
behind her as though the wind had blown her out.
It was only much later she realized that the figure who
had then overtaken her, supported, comforted with kind
ordinary words she hardly understood at the moment and
yet vaguely /welcomed, finally leaving her at the door of her
father's house in Chelsea, was the figure of Edward Fillery.
CHAPTER XXIV
A 5 upon a former occasion some twenty-four hours be-
fore, "N. H." seemed hardly aware that his visitor
had left, though this time there was the vital difference
that what was of value had not gone at all. The essence
of the girl, it seemed, was still with him. It remained. The
physical presence was to him apparently the least of all.
He returned to his place at the open window of the
darkening room, while night, with her cooler airs, passed
over tne world on tiptoe. He drew deep breaths, opened
his arms, and seemed to shake himself, as though glad to
be free of recent little awkward and unnatural gestures that
had irked him. There was happiness in his face. "She
is a builder, though she has forgotten," ran his thought with
pleasure, "and I can work with her. Like Fillery, she
builds up, constructs; we are all three in the same service,
and the gods are glad. I love her . . . yes . . . but she"
his thoughts grew troubled and confused "she speaks of
another love that is a tight and binding little thing . . . that
catches and confines. It is for one person only . . . one
person for one other. . . . For two . . . only for two per-
sons ! . . . What is its meaning then ?"
Of her words and acts he had understood evidently a
small part only; much that she had said and done he had
not comprehended, although in it somewhere there had cer-
tainly lain a sweet, faint, troubling pleasure that was new
to him.
His thought wavered, nickered out and vanished. For
a long time he leaned against the window with his images,
thinking with his heart, for when alone and not stirred by
312
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 313
the thinking of others close to him, he became of a curious
childlike innocence, knowing nothing. His "thinking" with
others present seemed but a reflection of their thinking.
The way he caught up the racial thinking, appearing swiftly
intelligent at the time (as with Fillery's mind), passed the
instant he was alone. He became open, then, to bigger
rhythms that the little busy thinkers checked and interrupted.
But this greater flow of images, of rhythms, this thinking
with the heart what was it, and with what things did it
deal ? He did not know. He had forgotten. To his present
brain it was alien. He grasped only that it was concerned
with the rhythms of fire and wind apparently, though hardly,
perhaps, of that crude form in which men know them, but
of an inner, subtler, more vital heat and air which lie in
and behind all forms and help to shape them and of In-
telligences which use these as their vehicles, their instru-
ments, their bodies.
In his "images" he was aware of these Intelligences, per-
ceived them with his entire being, shared their activities
and nature : behind all so-called forms and shapes, whether
of people, flowers, minerals, of insects or of stars, of a
bird, a butterfly or a nebula, but also of those mental shapes
which are born of thought and mood and heart this host
of Intelligences, great and small, all delving together, build-
ing, constructing, involved in a vast impersonal service which
was deathless. This seemed the mighty call that thundered
through him, fire and wind merely the agencies with which
he, in particular, knew instinctively his duties lay.
For his work, these images taught him, was to increase
life by making the "body" it used as perfect as he could.
The more perfect the form, the instrument, the greater
the power manifesting through it. A poor, imperfect form
stopped the flow of this manifesting life, as though a cur-
rent were held up and delayed. For instance, his own form,
his present body, now irked, delayed and hampered him,
although he knew not how or why or whence he had come
to be using it at this moment on the earth. The instinctive
314 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
desire to escape from it lay in him, and also the instinctive
recognition that two others, similarly caught and imprisoned,
must escape with him. . . .
The images, the rhythms, poured through him in a mighty
flood, as he leaned by the open window, his great figure,
his whole nature too, merging in the space, the wind, the
darkness of the soft-moving night beyond. . . . Yet dark-
ness troubled him too; it always seemed unfamiliar, new,
something he had never been accustomed to. In darkness
he became quiet, very gentle, feeling his way, as it were,
uneasily.
He was aware, however, that Fillery was near, though
not, perhaps, that he was actually in the room, seated some-
where among the shadows, watching him. He felt him close
in the same way he felt the girl still close, whether distance
between them in space was actually great or small. The
essential in all three was similar, their yearnings, hopes,
intentions, purposes were akin; their longing for some
service, immense, satisfying, it seemed, connected them. The
voice, however, did not startle when it sounded behind him
from an apparently empty room:
"The love she spoke of you do not understand, of course.
Perhaps you do not need it. . . ."
The voice, as well as the feeling that lay behind, hardly
disturbed the images and rhythms in their wondrous flow.
Rather, they seemed a part of them. "N. H." turned. He
saw Dr. Fillery distinctly, sitting motionless among the
shadows by the wall.
"It is, for you, a new relationship, and seems small,
cramping and unnecessary "
"What is it?" "N. H." asked. "What is this love she
seeks to hold me with, saying that I need it ? Dear Fillery,"
he added, moving nearer, "will you tell me what it is? I
found it sweet and pleasant, yet I fear it."
"It is," was the reply, "in its best form, the highest quality
we know "
"Ah ! I felt the fire in it," interrupted "N. H." smiling.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 315
"I smelt the flowers." His smile seemed faintly luminous
across the gloom.
"Because it was the best/' replied the other gently. "In
its best form it means, sometimes, the complete sacrifice of
one being for the welfare of another. There is no self in
it at all." He felt the eyes of his companion fixed upon
him in the darkness of the quiet room ; he felt likewise that
he was bewildered and perplexed. "As, for instance, the
mother for her child," he went on. "That is the purest form
of it we know."
"One being feels it for one other only," "N. H." repeated
apparently ignoring the reference to maternal love. "Each
wants the other for himself alone! Each lives for the other
only, the rest excluded! It is always two and two. Is
that what she means?"
"She would not like it if you had the same feeling for
another woman," Fillery explained. "She would feel
jealousy which means she would grudge sharing you with
another. She would resent it, afraid of losing you."
"Two and two, and two and two," the words floated
through the shadows. The ideal seemed to shock and hurt
him; he could not understand it. "She asks for the whole
of me all to herself. It is lower than insects, flowers even.
It is against Nature. So small, so separate "
"But Nature," interrupted Dr. Fillery, after an interval
of silence between them, "is not concerned with what we
call love. She is indifferent to it. Her purpose is merely
the continuance of the Race, and she accomplishes this by
making men and women attractive to one another. This,
too," he explained, "we call love, though it is love in its
weakest, least enduring form."
"That," replied "N. H.," "I know and understand. She
builds the best form she can."
"And once the form is built," agreed the other, "and
Nature's aim fulfilled, this kind of love usually fades out
and dies. It is a physical thing entirely, like the two atoms
we read about together a few days ago which rush together
316 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
automatically to produce a third thing." He lowered his
voice suddenly. "There was a great teacher once," he went
on, "who told us that we should love everybody, everybody,
and that in the real life there was no marriage, as we call
it, nor giving in marriage."
It seemed that, as he said the words, the darkness lifted,
and a faint perfume of flowers floated through the air.
"N. H." made no comment or reply. He sat still, listening.
"I love her," he whispered suddenly. "I love her in that
way because I want everybody else to love her too as
I do, and as you do. But I do not want her for myself
alone. Do you? You do not, of course. I feel you are
as I am. You are happy that I love her."
"There is morality," said Fillery presently in a low voice,
glad at that moment of the darkness. "There is what we
call morality."
"Tell me, dear Fillery, what that is. Is it bigger than
your 'love'?"
Dr. Fillery explained briefly, while his companion listened
intently, making no comment. It was evidently as strange
and new to him as human love. "We have invented it,"
he added at the end, "to protect ourselves, our mothers, our
families, our children. It is, you see, a set of rules devised
for the welfare of the Race. For though a few among us
do not need such rules, the majority do. It is, in a word,
the acknowledgment of the rights of others."
"It had to be invented !" exclaimed "N. H.," with a sigh
that seemed to trouble the darkness as with the sadness
of something he could scarcely believe. "And these rules
are needed still ! Is the Race at that stage only ? It does
not move, then ?"
Into the atmosphere, as the low-spoken words were
audible, stole again that mysterious sense of the insignif-
icance of earth and all its manifold activities, human and
otherwise, and with it, too, a remarkable breath of some
larger reality, starry-bright, that lay shining just beyond all
known horizons. Fillery shivered in spite of himself. It
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 317
seemed to him for an instant that the great figure looming
opposite through the darkness extended, spread, gathering
into its increased proportions the sky, the trees, the darkened
space outside; that it no longer sat there quite alone. He
recalled his colleague's startling admission the touch of
panic terror.
"Slowly, if at all," he said louder, though wondering why
he raised his voice. "Yet there is some progress."
He had the feeling it would be better to turn on the light,
as though this conversation and the strange sensations it
produced in him would be impossible in a full blaze. He
made a movement, indeed, to find the switch. It was the
sound of his companion's voice that made him pause, for
the words came at him as though a wave of heat moved
through the air. He knew intuitively that the other's intense
inner activity had increased. He let his hand drop. He
listened. Their thoughts, he was convinced, had mingled
and been mutually shared again. There was a faint sound
like music behind it.
"We have worked such a little time as yet," fell the words
into the silence. "If only oh! if only I could remember
more !"
"A little time!" thought Fillery to himself, knowing that
the other meant the millions of years Nature had used to
evoke her myriad forms. "Try to remember," he added
in a whisper.
"What I do remember, I cannot even tell," was the reply,
the voice strangely deepening. "No words come to me."
He paused a moment, then went on: "I am of the first,
the oldest. I know that. The earth was hot and burning
burning, burning still. It was soft with heat when I was
summoned from from other work just completed. With
a vast host I came. Our Service summoned us. We began
at the beginning. I am of the oldest. The earth was still
hot burning, burning "
The voice failed suddenly.
"I cannot remember. Dear Fillery, I cannot remember.
318 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
It hurts me. My head pains. Our work our service yes,
there is progress. The ages, as you call them but it is
such a little time as yet " The voice trailed off, the
figure lost its suggestion of sudden vastness, the darkness
emptied. "I am of the oldest that I remember only. . . ."
It ceased as though it drifted out upon the passing wind
outside.
"Then you have been working," said Fillery, his voice
still almost a whisper, "you and your great host, for thou-
sands of years in the service of this planet " He broke
off, unable to find his words, it seemed.
"Since the beginning," came the steady answer. "Years
I do not know. Since the beginning. Yet we have only
just begun oh !" he cried, "I cannot remember ! It is im-
possible! It all goes lost among my words, and in this
darkness I am confused and entangled with your own
little thinking. I suffer with it." Then suddenly: "My
eyes are hot and wet, dear Fillery. What happens to them ?"
He stood up, putting both hands to his face. Fillery stood
up too. He trembled.
"Don't try," he said soothingly ; "do not try to remember
any more. It will come back to you soon, but it won't come
back by any deliberate effort."
He comforted him as best he could, realizing that the
curious dialogue had lasted long enough. But he did not
produce a disconcerting blaze by turning the light on sud-
denly ; he led his companion gently to the door, so that the
darkness might pass more gradually. The lights in the
corridor were shaded and inoffensive. It was only in the
bedroom that he noticed the bright tears, as "N. H.," ex-
amining them with curious interest in the mirror, exclaimed
more to himself than to Fillery: "She had them too. I
saw them in her eyes when she spoke to me of love, the
love she will teach me because she said I needed it."
"Tears," said Fillery t his voice shaking. "They come
from feeling pain."
"It is a little thing," returned "N. H.," smiling at himself,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 319
then turning to his friend, his great blue eyes shining won-
derfully through their moisture. "Then she felt what I
felt we felt together. When she comes to-morrow I will
show her these tears and she will be glad I love. And she
will bring tears of her own, and you will have some too,
and we shall all love together. It is not difficult, is it?"
"Not very," agreed Fillery, smiling in his turn ; "it is not
very difficult." He was again trembling.
"She will be happy that we all love."
"I hope so."
It was curious how easily tears came to the eyes of
this strange being, and for causes so different that they
were not easy to explain. He did not cry; it was merely
that the hot tears welled up.
Even with Devonham once it happened too. The lesson
in natural history was over. Devonham had just sketched
the outline of the various kingdoms, with the animal king-
dom and man's position in it, according to present evolu-
tionary knowledge, and had then said something about the
earth's place in the solar system, and the probable relation
of this system to the universe at large an admirable bird's-
eye view, as it were, without a hint of speculative imagina-
tion in it anywhere when "N. H.," after intent listening
in irresponsive silence, asked abruptly:
"What does it believe?" Then, as Devonham stared at
him, a little puzzled at first, he repeated : "That is what
the Race knows. But what does it believe?"
"Believe," said Devonham, "believe. Ah ! you mean what
is its religion, its faith, its speculations!" and proceeded
to give the briefest possible answer he felt consistent with
his duty. The less his pupil's mind was troubled with
such matters, the better, in his opinion.
"And their God?" the young man inquired abruptly, as
soon as the recital was over. He had listened closely, as
he always did, but without a sign of interest, merely waiting
for the end, much as a child who is bored by a poor fairy
320 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
tale, yet wishes to know exactly how it is all going to finish.
"They know Him?" He leaned forward.
Devonham, not quite liking the form of the question,
nor the more eager manner accompanying it, hesitated a
moment, thinking perhaps what he ought to say. He did
not want this mind, now opening, to be filled with ideas
that could be of no use to it, nor help in its formation;
least of all did he desire it to be choked and troubled with
the dead theology of man-made notions concerning a tum-
bling personal Deity. Creeds, moreover, were a matter of
faith, of auto-suggestion as he called it, being obviously
divorced from any process of reason. He had, nevertheless,
a question to answer and a duty to perform. His hesitation
passed in compromise. He was, as has been seen, too
sincere, too honest, to possess much sense of humour.
"The Race," he said, "or rather that portion of it into
which you have been born, believes on paper" he em-
phasized the qualification "in a paternal god; but its real
god, the god it worships, is Knowledge. Not a Knowledge
that exists for its own sake," he went on blandly, "but that
brings possessions, power, comfort and a million needless
accessories into life. That god it worships, as you see, with
energy and zeal. Knowledge and work that shall result in
acquisition, in pleasure, that is the god of the Race on this
side of the planet where you find yourself."
"And the God on paper?" asked "N. H.," making no
comment, though he had listened attentively and had under-
stood. "The God that is written about on paper, and be-
lieved in on paper?"
"The printed account of this god," replied Devonham,
"describes an omnipotent and perfect Being who has existed
always. He created the planet and everything upon it, but
created it so imperfectly that he had to send later a smaller
god to show how much better he might have created us.
In doing this, he offered us an extremely difficult and
laborious method of improvement, a method of escaping
from his own mistake, but a method so painful and un-
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 321
realizable that it is contrary to our very natures as he
made them first." He almost smacked his lips as he said it.
"The big God, the first one," asked "N. H." at once.
"Have they seen and known Him ? Have they complained ?"
"No," said Devonham, "they have not. Those who believe
in him accept things as he made them."
"And the smaller lesser God how did He arrive ?" came
the odd question.
"He was born like you and me, but without a father.
No male had his mother ever known."
"He was recognized as a god?" The pupil showed in-
terest, but no emotion, much less excitement.
"By a few. The rest, afraid because he told them their
possessions were worthless, killed him quickly."
"And the few?"
"They obeyed his teaching, or tried to, and believed that
they would live afterwards for ever and ever in happi-
ness "
"And the others ? The many ?"
"The others, according to the few, would live afterwards
for ever and ever in pain."
"It is a demon story," said "N. H.," smiling.
"It is printed, believed, taught," replied Devonham, "by
an immense organization to millions of people "
"Free?" inquired his pupil.
"The teachers are paid, but very little "
"The teachers believe it, though?"
"Y-yes at least some of them probably," replied Dev-
onham, after brief consideration.
"And the millions do they worship this God?"
"They do, on paper, yes. They worship the first big God.
They go once or twice a week into special buildings, dressed
in their best clothes as for a party, and pray and sing
and tell him he is wonderful and they themselves are miser-
able and worthless, and then ask him in abject humility for
all sorts of things they want."
"Do they get them?"
322 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"They ask for different things, you see. One wants fine
weather for his holidays, another wants rain for his crops.
The prayers in which they ask are printed by the Govern-
ment."
"They ask for this planet only ?"
"This planet conceives itself alone inhabited. There are
no other living beings anywhere. The Earth is the centre
of the universe, the only globe worth consideration."
Although "N. H." asked these quick questions, his interest
was obviously not much engaged, the first sharp attention
having passed. Then he looked fixedly at Devonham and
said, with a sudden curious smile : "What you say is always
dead. I understand the sounds you use, but the meaning
cannot get into me inside, I mean. But I thank you for
the sound."
There was a moment's pause, during which Devonham,
accustomed to strange remarks and comments from his
pupil, betrayed no sign of annoyance or displeasure. He
waited to see if any further questions would be forthcoming.
He was observing a phenomenon ; his attitude was scientific.
"But, in sending this lesser God," resumed "N. H."
presently, "how did the big One excuse himself?"
"He didn't. He told the Race it was so worthless that
nothing else could save it. He looked on while the lesser
God was killed. He is very proud about it, and claims the
thanks and worship of the Race because of it/'
"The lesser God poor lesser God !" observed "N. H."
"He was bigger than the other." He thought a moment.
"How pitiful," he added.
"Much bigger," agreed Devonham, pleased with his pupil's
acumen, his voice, even his manner, changing a little as
he continued. "For then came the wonder of it all. The
lesser God's teachings were so new and beautiful that the
position of the other became untenable. The Race disowned
him. It worshipped the lesser one in his place."
"Tell me, tell me, please," said "N. H.," as though he
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 323
noticed and understood the change of tone at once. "I listen.
The dear Fillery spoke to me of a great Teacher. I feel
a kind, deep joy move in me. Tell me, please."
Again Devonham hesitated a moment, for he recognized
signs that made him ill at ease a little, because he did not
understand them. Following a scientific textbook with his
pupil was well and good, but he had no desire to trespass
on what he considered as Fillery's territory. "N. H." was
his pupil, not his patient. He had already gone too far, he
realized. After a moment's reflection, however, he decided
it was wiser to let the talk run out its natural course, instead
of ending it abruptly. He was as thorough as he was sin-
cere, and whatever his own theories and prejudices might
be in this particular case, he would not shirk an issue, nor
treat it with the smallest dishonesty. He put the glasses
straight on his big nose.
"The new teachings," he said, "were so beautiful that,
if faithfully practised by everybody, the world would soon
become a very different place to what it is."
"Did the Race practise them?" came the question in a
voice that held a note of softness, almost of wonder.
"No."
"Why not?"
"They were too difficult and painful and uncomfortable.
The new God, moreover, only came here 2,000 years ago,
whereas men have existed on earth for at least 400,000."
"N. H." asked abruptly what the teachings were, and
Devonham, growing more and more uneasy as he noted
the signs of increasing intensity and disturbance in his
pupil, recited, if somewhat imperfectly, the main points of
the Sermon on the Mount. As he did so "N. H." began
to murmur quietly to himself, his eyes grew large and
bright, his face lit up, his whole body trembled. He began
that deep, rhythmical breathing which seemed lo affect the
atmosphere about him so that his physical appearance in-
creased and spread. The skin took on something of radi-
324 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
ance, as though an intense inner happiness shone through
it. Then, suddenly, to Devonham's horror, he began to
hum.
Though a normal, ordinary sound enough, it reminded
him of that other sound he had once shared with Fillery,
when he sat on the stairs, staring at a china bowl filled
with visiting cards, while the dawn broke after a night
of exhaustion and bewilderment. That sound, of course,
he had long since explained and argued away it was an
auditory hallucination conveyed to his mind by LeVallon,
who originated it. Interesting and curious, it was far from
inexplicable. It was disquieting, however, for it touched
in him a vague sense of alarm, as though it paved the way
for that odd panic terror he had been amazed to discover
hidden away deeply in some unrealized corner of his being.
This humming he now listened to, though normal and
ordinary enough there were no big vibrations with it, for
one thing was too suggestive of that other sound for him
to approve of it. His mind rapidly sought some way of
stopping it. A command, above all an impatient, harsh
command, was out of the question, yet a request seemed
equally not the right way. He fumbled in his mind to find
the wise, proper words. He stretched his hand out, as
though to lay it quietly upon his companion's shoulder
but realized suddenly he could not almost he dared not
touch him.
The same instant "N. H." rose. He pushed his chair
back and stood up.
Devonham, justly proud of his equable temperament and
steady nerves, admits that only a great effort of self-control
enabled him to sit quietly and listen. He listened, watched,
and made mental notes to the best of his ability, but he
was frightened a little. The outburst was so sudden. He
is not sure that his report of what he heard, made later
to Fillery, was a verbatim, accurate one :
"Justice we know," cried "N. H." in his half-chanting
voice that seemed to boom with resonance, "but this this
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 325
mercy, gentle kindness, beauty this unknown loveliness
we did not know it!" He went to the open window, and
threw his arms wide, as though he invoked the sun. "Dimly
we heard of it. We strive, we strive, we weave and build
and fashion while the whirl of centuries flies on. This
lesser God he came among us, too, making our service
sweeter, though we did not understand. Our work grew
wiser and more careful, we built lovelier forms, and knew
not why we did so. His mighty rhythms touched us with
their power and happy light. Oh, my great messengers of
wind and fire, bring me the memory I have lost ! Oh, where,
where ?""
He shook himself, as though his clothes, perhaps his body
even ; irked him. It was a curious coincidence, thought
Devonham, as he watched and listened, too surprised and
puzzled to interfere either by word or act, that a cloud, at
that very moment, passed from the face of the sun, and
a gust of wind shook all the branches of the lime trees
in the garden. "N. H." stood drenched in the white clear
sunshine. His flaming hair was lifted by the wind.
"Behind, beyond the Suns He dwells and burns for ever.
Oh, the mercy, kindness, the strange beauty of this personal
love what is it ? These have been promised to us too !"
He broke off abruptly, bowed his great head and shoulders,
and sank upon his knees in an attitude of worship. Then,
stretching his arms out to the sky, the face raised into the
flood of sunlight, while his voice became lower, softer, al-
most hushed, he spoke again:
"Our faithful service, while the circles swallow the suns,
shall lift us too ! You, who sent me here to help this little,
dying Race, oh, help me to remember !"
His passion was a moving sight; the words, broken
through with fragments of his chanting, singing, had the
blood of some infinite, intolerable yearning in them.
Devonham, meanwhile, having heard outbursts of this
strange kind before with others, had recovered something
of his equanimity. He felt more sure of himself again.
326 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
The touch of fear had left him. He went over to the
window. The attack, as he deemed it, was passing. A
thick cloud hid the sun again. "There, there," he said
soothingly, laying both hands upon the other's shoulders,
then taking the arms to help him rise. "I told you His
teachings were very beautiful that the world would become
a kind of heaven if people lived them." His voice seemed
not his own; beside the volume and music of the other's
it had a thin, rasping, ugly sound.
"N. H." was on his feet, gazing down into his face;
to Devonham's amazement there were tears in the eyes that
met his own.
"And many people do live them try to, rather," he added
gently. "There are thousands who really worship this lesser
God to-day. You can't go far wrong yourself if you take
Him as your model an "
"How He must have suffered !" came the astonishing in-
terruption, the voice quiet and more natural again. "There
was no way of telling what he knew. He had no words,
of course. You are all so difficult, so caged, so dead !"
Devonham smiled. "He used parables." He paused a
moment, then went on "Men have existed on the planet,
science tells us, for at least 403,000 years, whereas He came
here only 2,000 years ago "
"Came here," interrupted the pupil, as though the earth
were but one of a thousand places visited, a hint of contempt
and pity somewhere in his tone and gesture. "We made His
way ready then ! We prepared, we built ! It was for that
our work went on and on so faithfully."
He broke off. . . .
Devonham experienced a curious sensation as he heard.
In that instant it seemed to him that he was conscious
of the movement of the earth through space. He was aware
that the planet on which he stood was rushing forward at
eighteen miles a second through the sky. He felt himself
carried forward with it.
"What was His name?" he heard "N. H." asking. It
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 327
was as though he was aware of the enormous interval in
space traversed by the rolling earth between the first and
last words of the sudden question. It trailed through an
immense distance towards him, after him, yet at the same
time ever with him.
"His name oh Jesus Christ, we call him," wondering
at the same moment why he used the pronoun "we."
"Jesus Christ!"
"N. H." repeated the name with such intensity and power
that the sound, borne by deep vibrations, seemed to surge
and circle forth into space while the earth rushed irresistibly
onwards. A faintly imaginative idea occurred to Devonham
for the first time in his life it was as though the earth
herself had opened her green lips and uttered the great
name. With this came also the amazing and disconcerting
conviction that Nature and humans were expressions of
one and the same big simple energy, and that while their
forms, their bodies, differed, the life manifesting through
them was identical, though its degree might vary. For an
instant this was of such overpowering conviction as to be
merely obvious.
It passed as quickly as it came, though he still was dimly
conscious that he had travelled with the earth through
another huge stretch of space. Then this sense of movement
also passed. He looked up. "N. H." was in his chair
again at the table, reading quietly his book on natural
history. But in his eyes the moisture of tears was still
visible.
Devonham adjusted his glasses, blew his nose, went
quickly to another room to jot down his notes of the talk,
the reactions, the general description, and in doing so dis-
missed from his mind the slight uneasy effects of what had
been a "curious hallucination," caused evidently by an "un-
explained stimulation" of the motor centres in the brain.
CHAPTER XXV
full account of "N. H.," with all he said and did,
_L his effect upon others, his general activities in a
word, it is impossible to compress intelligibly into the com-
pass of these notes. A complete report Edward Fillery
indeed accumulated, but its publication, he realized, must
await that leisure for which his busy life provided little
opportunity. His eyes, mental and physical, were never
off his "patient," and "N. H.," aware of it, leaped out to
meet the observant sympathy, giving all he could, concealing
nothing, yet debarred, it seemed, by the rigid limitations
of his own mental and physical machinery, as similarly by
that of his hearers, from contributing more than suggestive
and tantalizing hints. Of the use of parable he, obviously,
had no knowledge.
His relations with others, perhaps, offered the most sig-
nificant comments on his personality. Fillery was at some
pains to collect these. The reactions were various, yet one
and all showed this in common, a curious verdict but unan-
imous: that his effect, namely, was greatest when he was
not there. Not in his actual presence, which promised rather
than fulfilled, was his power so dominating upon mind and
imagination as after the door was closed and he was gone.
The withdrawal of his physical self, its absence as Fillery
had himself experienced one night on Hampstead Heath
as well as on other occasions brought his real presence
closer.
It was Nayan who first drew attention to thi? remarkable
characteristic. She spoke about him often now with Dr.
Fillery, for as the weeks passed and she realized the useless-
ness, the impossibility, of the plan she had proposed to
328
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 329
herself, she found relief in talking frankly about him to
her older friend.
"Always, always after I leave him," she confessed, "a
profound and searching melancholy gets hold of me, poign-
ant as death, yet an extraordinary unrealized beauty behind
it somewhere. It steals into my very blood and bones. I
feel an intense dissatisfaction with the world, with people
as they are, and a burning scorn for all that is small, un-
worthy, petty, mean and yet a hopelessness of ever attain-
ing to that something which he knows and lives so easily."
She sighed, gazing into his eyes a moment. "Or of ever
making others see it," she added.
"And that 'something,' " he asked, "can you define it ?"
She shook her head. "It's in me, within reach even, but
the word he used is the only one forgotten."
"Perhaps has it ever occurred to you? that he simply
cannot describe it. There are no words, no means at his
disposal no human terms?"
"Perhaps," she murmured.
"Desirable, though ?" he urged her gently.
She clasped her hands, smiling. "Heavenly," she mur-
mured, closing her eyes a moment as though to try and
recall it. "Yet when I'm with him," she went on, "he never
quite realizes for me the state of wonder and delight his
presence promises. His personality suggests rather than
fulfils." She paused, a wistful, pained expression in her
dark eyes. "The failure," she added quickly, lest she seem
to belittle him of whom she spoke, "of course lies in myself.
I refuse, you see I can't say why, though I feel it's wise
to let myself be dominated by that strange, lost part of me
he stimulates."
"True," interposed Dr. Fillery. "I understand. Yet to
have felt this even is a sign "
"That he stirs the deepest, highest in me? This hint of
divine beauty in the unrealized under-self?"
He nodded. There was an odd touch of sadness in their
talk. "I've watched him with many types of people," he
330 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
went on thoughtfully, almost as though thinking aloud in
his rapid way, "I've talked with him on many subjects. The
meanness, jealousy, insignificance of the Race shocks and
amazes him. He cannot understand it. He asked me once
'But is no one born noble? To be splendid is such an effort
with them!' Splendour of conduct, he noticed, is a cal-
culated, rarely a spontaneous splendour. The general re-
sistance to new ideas also puzzles him. 'They fear a rhythm
they have never felt before,' as he put it. To adopt a new
rhythm, they think, must somehow injure them.' That the
Race respects a man because he possesses much equally be-
wilders him. 'No one serves willingly or naturally,' he
observed, 'or unless someone else receives money for draw-
ing attention loudly to it.' Any notion of reward, of adver-
tisement, in its widest meaning, is foreign to his nature."
He broke off. Another pause fell between them, the girl
the first to break it :
"He suffers," she said in a low voice. "Here he suffers,"
and her face yearned with the love and help she longed
to pour out beyond all thought of self or compensation,
and at the same time with the pain of its inevitable frus-
tration ; and, watching her, Dr. Fillery understood that this
very yearning was another proof of the curious impetus,
the intensification of being, that "N. H." caused in everyone.
Yet he winced, as though anticipating the question she at
once then put to him :
"You are afraid for him, Edward?" her eyes calmly,
searchingly on his. "His future troubles you?"
He turned to her with abrupt intensity. "If you, Iraida,
could not enchain him " He broke off. He shrugged
his shoulders.
"I have no power," she confessed. "An insatiable longing
burns like a fire in him. Nothing he finds here on earth,
among men and women, can satisfy it." A faint blush stole
up her neck and touched her cheeks. "He is different. /
have no power to keep him here." Her voice sank suddenly
to a whisper, as though a breath of awe passed into her'.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 331
"He is here now at this very moment, I believe. He is
with us as we talk together. I feel him." Almost a visible
thrill passed through her. "And close, so very close to
you."
Dr. Fillery made no sign by word or gesture, but some-
thing in his very silence gave assent.
"And not alone," she added, still under her breath. It
seemed she looked about her, though she did not actually
move or turn her head. "Others of his kind, Edward
come with him. They are always with him I think some-
times." Her whisper was fainter still.
"You feel that too !" He said it abruptly, his voice louder
and almost challenging. Then he added incongruously, as
though saying it to himself this time, "That's what I mean.
I've known it for a long time "
He looked at the girl sharply with unconcealed admira-
tion. "It does not frighten you?" he asked, and in reply
she said the very thing he felt sure she would say, hoping
for it even while he shrank:
"Escape," he heard in a low, clear voice, half a question,
half an exclamation, and saw the blood leave her face.
The instinctive "Hush !" that rose to his lips he did not
utter. The sense of loss, of searching pain, the word im-
plied he did not show. Instead, he spoke in his natural,
everyday tone again :
"The body irks him, of course, and he may try to rid
himself of it. Its limitations to him are a prison, for his
true consciousness he finds outside it. The explanation,"
he added to himself, "of many a case of suicidal mania
probably. I've often wondered "
He took her hand, aware by the pallor of her face what
her feelings were. "Death, you see, Nayan, has no meaning
for him, as it has for us who think consciousness out of
the body impossible, and he is puzzled by our dread of it.
'We/ he said once, 'have nothing that decays. We may be
stationary, or advance, or retreat, but we can never end.'
He derives oh, I'm convinced of it from another order.
332 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Here amongst us he is inarticulate, unable to express
himself, hopeless, helpless, in prison. Oh, if only "
"He loves you'' she said quickly, releasing her hand.
"I suppose he realizes the eternal part of you and identifies
himself with that. In you, Edward, lies something very
close to what he is, akin he needs it terribly, just as
you " She became confused.
"Love, as we understand it," he interrupted, his voice
shaking a little, "he does not, cannot know, for he serves
another law, another order of being."
"That's how I feel it too."
She shivered slightly, but she did not turn away, and
her eyes kept all their frankness.
"Our humanity," she murmured, "writes upon his heart
in ink that quickly fades "
"And leaves no trace," he caught her up hurriedly. "His
one idea is to help, to render service. It is as natural to
him as for water to run down hill. He seeks instinctively
to become one with the person he seeks to aid. As with
us an embrace is an attempt at union, so he seeks, by some
law of his own being, to become identified with those whom
he would help. And he helps by intensifying their con-
sciousness somewhat as heat and air increase ordinary
physical vitality. Only, first there must be something for
him to work on. Energy, even bad, vicious, wrongly used,
he can work on. Mere emptiness prevents him. You remem-
ber Lady Gleeson "
"We most of us are too empty," she put in with quiet
resignation. "Our sense of that divine beauty is too
faint "
"Rather," came the quick correction, "he stands too close
to us. His effect is too concentrated. The power at such
close quarters disturbs and overbalances."
"That's why, then, I always feel it strongest when he's
left."
He glanced at her keenly.
"In his presence," she explained, "it's always as though
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 333
I saw only a part of him, even of his physical appearance,
out of the corner of my eye, as it were, and sometimes "
She hesitated. He did not help her this time. "As if those
others, many others, similar to himself, but invisible, crowd-
ing space about us, were intensely active." Her voice hushed
again. "He brings them with him as now. I feel it,
Edward, now. I feel them close." She looked round the
empty room, peering through the window into the quiet
evening sky. Dr. Fillery also turned away. He sighed
again. "Have you noticed, too," he went on presently,
yet half as if following his own thoughts, and a trifle in-
congruously, "the speed and lightness his very movements
convey, and how he goes down the street with that curious
air of drawing things after him, along with him, as trains
and motors draw the loose leaves and dust "
"Whirling," her quick whisper startled him a little, as
she turned abruptly from the window and gazed straight
at him. He smiled, instantly recovering himself. "A good
word, yes whirling but in the plural. As though there
were vortices about him."
It was her turn to smile. "That might one day carry
him away," she exclaimed. They smiled together then,
they even laughed, but somewhere in their laughter, like
the lengthening shadows of the spring day outside, lay an
incommunicable sadness neither of them could wholly under-
stand.
"Yet the craving for beauty," she said suddenly, "that
he leaves behind in me" her voice wavered "an intolerable
yearning that nothing can satisfy nothing here. An in-
finite desire, it seems, for for "
Dr. Fillery took her hand again gently, looking down
steadily into the clear eyes that sought his own, and the
light glistening in their moisture was similar, he fancied
for a moment, to the fire in another pair of shining eyes
that never failed to stir the unearthly dreams in him.
"It lies beyond any words of ours," he said softly. "Don't
struggle to express it, Iraida. To the flower, the star, we
334 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
are wise to leave their own expression in their own par-
ticular field, for we cannot better it."
A sound of rising wind, distant yet ominous, went past
the window, as for a moment then the girl came closer
till she was almost in his arms, and though he did not
accept her, equally he did not shrink from the idea of
acceptance for the first time since they had known one
another. There was a smell of flowers ; almost in that wail-
ing wind he was aware of music.
"Together," he heard her whisper, while a faint shiver
was it of joy or terror? ran through her nerves. "All
of us when the time comes together." She made an ab-
rupt movement. "Just as we are together now ! Listen !"
she exclaimed.
"We call it wind," she whispered. "But of course
really it's behind beyond inside isn't it ?"
Dr. Fillery, holding her closely, made no answer. Then
he laughed, let go her hands, and said in his natural tone
again, breaking an undesirable spell intentionally, though
with a strong effort : "We are in space and time, remember.
Iraida. Let us obey them happily until another certain and
practical thing is shown us."
The faint sound that had been rising about them in the
air died down again.
They looked into each other's eyes, then drew apart,
though with a movement so slight it was scarcely perceptible.
It was Nayan and Dr. Fillery once more, but not before
the former had apparently picked out the very thought that
had lain, though unexpressed, in the latter's deepest mind
its sudden rising the cause of his deliberate change of atti-
tude. For she had phrased it, given expression to it, though
from an angle very different to his own. And her own
word, "escape," used earlier in the conversation, had de-
liberately linked on with it, as of intentional purpose.
"He must go back. The time is coming when he must
go back. We are not ready for him here not yet."
Somewhat in this fashion, though without any actual
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 335
words, had the idea appeared in letters of fire that leaped
and flickered through a mist of anguish, of loss, of lone-
liness, rising out of the depths within him. He knew whence
they came, he divined their origin at once, and the sound,
though faint and distant at first, confirmed him. Swiftly
behind them, moreover, born of no discoverable antecedents,
it seemed, rose simultaneously the phrase that Father Collins
loved: "A Being in his own place is the ruler of his fate."
Father Collins, for all his faults and strangeness, was a
personality, a consciousness, that might prove of value. His
extraordinarily swift receptiveness, his undoubted telepathic
powers, his fluid, sensitive, protean comprehension of pos-
sibilities outside the human walls, above the earthly ceiling,
so to speak. . . . Value suddenly attached itself to Father
Collins, as though the name had been dropped purposely
into his mind by someone. He was surprised to find this
thought in him. It was not for the first time, however, Dr.
Fillery remembered.
In Nayan's father, again, an artist, though not a par-
ticularly subtle one perhaps, lay a deep admiration, almost
a love, he could not explain. "There's something about
him in a sense immeasurable, something not only untamed
but untamable," he phrased it. "His gentleness conceals
it as a summer's day conceals a thunderstorm. To me it's
almost like an incarnation of the primal forces at work in
the hearts of my own people" he grew sad "and as
dangerous probably." He was speaking to his daughter,
who repeated the words later to Dr. Fillery. The study of
Fire in the elemental group had failed. "He's too big, too
vast, too formless, to get into any shape or outline my tools
can manage, even by suggestion. He dominates the others
Earth, Air, Water and dwarfs them."
"But fire ought to," she put in. "It's the most powerful
and splendid, the most terrific of them all. Isn't it? It
regenerates. It purifies. I love fire "
Her father smiled in his beard, noticing the softness in
336 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
her manner, rather than in her voice. The awakening in
her he had long since understood sympathetically, if more
profoundly than she knew, and welcomed.
"He won't hurt you, child. He won't harm Nayushka
any more than a summer's day can hurt her. I see him
thus sometimes," he mumbled on half to himself, though
she heard and stored the words in her memory; "as an
entire day, a landscape even, I often see him. A stretch
of being rather than a point; a rushing stream rather than
a single isolated wave harnessed and confined in definite
form as we understand being here," he added curiously.
"No, he'll neither harm nor help you," he went on; "nor
any of us for that matter. A dozen nations, a planet, a
star he might help or harm" he laughed aloud suddenly
in a startled way at his own language "but an individual
never!" And he abruptly took her in his arms and kissed
her, drying her tears with his own rough handkerchief.
"Not even a fire- worshipper," he added with gruff tender-
ness, "like you!"
"There's more of divinity in fire than in any other earthly
thing we know," she replied as he held her, "for it takes
into itself the sweetest essence of all it touches." She looked
up at him with a smile. "That's why you can't get it into
your marble perhaps." To which her father made the sig-
nificant rejoinder: "And because none of us has the least
conception what 'divine' and 'divinity' really mean, though
we're always using the words ! It's odd, anyhow," he
finished reflectively, "that I can model the fellow better from
memory than when he's standing there before my eyes.
At close quarters he confuses me with too many terrific
unanswerable questions."
To multiply the verdicts and impressions Fillery jotted
down is unnecessary. In his own way he collected; in his
own way he wrote them down. About "N. H.," all agreed
in their various ways of expressing it, was that vital sugges-
tion of agelessness, of deathlessness, of what men call
eternal youth : the vigorous grace of limbs and movements,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 837
the deep simple joy of confider>ce and power. None could
picture him tired, or even wearing out, yet ever with a faint
hint of painful conflict due to immense potentialities "a
day compressed into a single minute," as Khilkoff phrased
it straining, but vainly, to express themselves through a
limited form that was inadequate to their use. A storm
of passionate hope and wonder seemed ever ready to tear
forth from behind the calm of the great quiet eyes, those
green-blue changing eyes, which none could imagine light-
less or unlamping; and about his whole presentment a
surplus of easy, overflowing energy from an inexhaustible
source pressing its gifts down into him spontaneously, fire
and wind its messengers; yet that the human machinery
using these mind, body, nerves was ill adapted to their
full expression. To every individual having to do with him
was given a push, a drive, an impetus that stimulated that
individual's chief characteristic, intensifying it.
This to imaginative and discerning sight. But even upon
ordinary folk, aware only of the surface things that de-
|liberately hit them, was left a startling impression as of
someone waving a strange, unaccustomed banner that made
them halt and stare before passing on uncomfortably. He
had that nameless quality, apart from looks or voice or
manner, which arrested attention and drew the eyes of the
soul, wonderingly, perhaps uneasily, upon itself. He left
a mark. Something denned him from all others, leaving
him silhouetted in the mind, and those who had looked
into his eyes could not forget that they had done so. Up
rose at once the great unanswerable questions that, lying
ever at the back of daily life, the majority find it most
comfortable to leave undisturbed but rose in red ink or
italics. He started into an awareness of greater life. And the
effect remained, was greatest even, after he had passed on.
It was, of course, Father Collins, a frequent caller now
at the Home, betraying his vehement interest in long talks
with Dr. Fillery and in what interviews with "N. H." the
338 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
latter permitted him it was this protean being whose mind,
amid wildest speculations, formed the most positive con-
clusions. The Prometheans, he believed, were not far wrong
in their instinctive collective judgment. "N. H." was not
a human being; the occupant of that magnificent body was
not a human spirit like the rest of us.
"Nor is he the only one walking the streets to-day," he
affirmed mysteriously. "In shops and theatres, trains and
buses, tucked in among the best families," he laughed, al-
though in earnest, "and even in suburbia I have come across
other human bodies similarly inhabited. What they are
and where they come from exactly, we cannot know, but
their presence among us is indubitable."
"You mean you recognize them?" inquired Dr. Fillery
calmly.
"One unmistakable sign they possess in common they
are invariably inarticulate, helpless, lost. The brain, the
five senses, the human organs all they have to work
through are useless to express the knowledge and powers
natural to them. Electricity might as well try to manifest
itself through a gas-pipe, or music through a stone. One
and all, too, possess strange glimmerings of another state
where they are happy and at home, something of the glory
a la Wordsworth, a Golden Age idea almost, a state com-
pared to which humanity seems a tin-pot business, yet a
state of which no single descriptive terms occur to them."
"Of which, however, they can tell us nothing?"
"Memory, of course, is lost. Their present brain can
have no records, can it? Only those of us who have per-
haps at some time, in some earlier existence possibly, shared
such a state can have any idea of what they're driving
at."
He glanced at Fillery with a significant raising of his
bushy eyebrows.
"There have been no phenomena, I'm glad to say," put
in the doctor, aware some comment was due from him,
"no physical phenomena, I mean."
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 339
"Nor could there be," pursued the other, delighted. "He
has not got the apparatus. With all such beings, their
power, rather than perceived, is felt. Sex, as with us, they
also cannot know, for they are neither male nor female."
He paused, as the other did not help him. "Enigmas they
must always be to us. We may borrow from the East and
call them devas, or class them among nature spirits of
legend and the rest, but we can, at any rate, welcome them,
and perhaps even learn from them."
"Learn from them?" echoed Fillery sharply.
"They are essentially natural, you see, whereas we are
artificial, and becoming more so with every century, though
we call it civilization. If we lived closer to nature we
might get better results, I mean. Primitive man, I'm con-
vinced, did get certain results, but he was a poor instrument.
Modern man, in some ways, is a better, finer instrument
to work through, only he is blind to the existence of any
beings but himself. A bridge, however, might be built,
I feel. 'N. H.' seems to me in close touch with these curious
beings, if" he lowered his voice "he is not actually one
of them. The wind and fire he talks about are, of course,
not what we mean. It is heat and rhythm, in some more
essential form, he refers to. If 'N. H.' is some sort of
nature spirit, or nature-being, he is of a humble type, con-
cerned with humble duties in the universe "
"There are, you think, then, higher, bigger kinds?'"
inquired the listener, his face and manner showing neither
approval nor disapproval.
Father Collins raised his hands and face and shoulders,
even his eyebrows. His spirits rose as well.
"If they exist at all and the assumption explains
plausibly the amazing intelligence behind all natural phe-
nomena they include every grade, of course, from the
insignificant fairies, so called, builders of simple forms, to
the immense planetary spirits and vast Intelligenes who
guide and guard the welfare of the greater happenings."
His eyes shone, his tone matched in enthusiasm his gestures.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"A stupendous and magnificent hierarchy," he cried, "but
all, all under God, of course, who maketh his angels spirit's
and his ministers a flaming fire. Ah, think of it," he went
on, becoming lyrical almost as wonder fired him, "think
of it now especially in the spring! The vast abundance
and insurgence of life pouring up on all sides into forms
and bodies, and all led, directed, fashioned by this host of
invisible, yet not unknowable, Intelligences! Think of the
prolific architecture, the delicacy, the grandeur, the inspir-
ing beauty that are involved. . . . !"
"You said just now a bridge might be built," Dr. Fiilery
interrupted, while the other paused a second for breath.
Father Collins, nailed down to a positive statement,
hesitated and looked about him. But the hesitation passed
at once.
"It is the question merely," he went on more composedly,
"of providing the apparatus, the means of manifestation,
the instrument, the -body. Isn't it? Our evolution and
theirs are two separate different things."
"I suppose so. No force can express itself without a
proper apparatus."
"Certain of these Intelligences are so immense that only
a series of events, long centuries, a period of history, as
we call it, can provide the means, the body indeed, through
which they can express themselves. An entire civilization
may be the 'body' used by an archetypal power. Others,
again like *N. H.' probably since I notice that it is usually
the artist, the artistic temperament he affects most require
beauty for their expression beauty of form and outline,
of sound, of colour."
He paused for effect, but no comment came.
"Our response to beauty, our thrill, our lift of delight
and wonder before any manifestation of beauty these are
due only to our perception, though usually unrecognized
except by artists, of the particular Intelligence thus trying
to express itself "
Dr. Fiilery suddenly leaned forward, listening with a
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER Ml
new expression on his face. He betrayed, however, no
sign of what he thought of his voluble visitor. An idea,
none the less, had struck Him like a flash between the eyes
of the mind.
"You mean," he interposed patiently, "that just as your
fairies use form and colour to express themselves in nature,
we might use beauty of a mental order to to "
"To build a body of expression, yes, an instrument in
a collective sense, through which 'X. H.' might express
whatever of knowledge, wisdom and power he has "
"Will you explain yourself a little more definitely ?"
Father Collins beamed. He continued with an air of
intense conviction:
"The Artist is ever an instrument merely, and for the
most part an unconscious one; only the greatest artist is
a conscious instrument. No man is an artist at all until
he transcends both nature and himself; that is, until he
interprets both nature and himself in the unknown terms
of that greater Power whence himself and nature emanate.
He is aware of the majestic source, aware that the universe,
in bulk and in detail, is an expression of it, itself a limited
instrument; but aware, further and here he proves him-
self great artist of the stupendous, lovely, central Power
whose message stammers, broken and partial, through the
inadequate instruments of ephemeral appearances.
"He creates, using beauty in form, sound, colour, a better
and more perfect instrument, provides this central Power
with a means of fuller expression.
"The message no longer stammers, halts, suggests; it
flows, it pours, it sings. He has fashioned a vehicle for
its passage. His art has created a body it can use. He
has transcended both nature and himself. The picture,
poem, harmony that has become the body for this revelation
is alone great art."
"Exactly," came the patient comment that was asked
for.
"One thing is certain: only human knowledge, expressed
342 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
in human terms, can come through a human brain. No
mind, no intellect, can convey a message that transcends
human experience and reason. Art, however, can. It can
supply the vehicle, the body. But, even here, the great
artist cannot communicate the secret of his Vision; he can-
not talk about it, tell it to others. He can only show the
result."
"Results," interrupted Dr. Fillery in a curious tone;
"what results, exactly, would you look for?" There was
a burning in his eyes. His skin was tingling.
"What else but a widening, deepening, heightening of
our present consciousness," came the instant reply. "An
extension of faculty, of course, making entirely new
knowledge available. A group of great artists, each con-
tributing his special vision, respectively, of form, colour,
words, proportion, could together create a 'body' to express
a Power transcending the accumulated wisdom of the world.
The race could be uplifted, taught, redeemed."
"You have already given some attention to this strange
idea ?" suggested his listener, watching closely the work-
ing of the other's face. "You have perhaps even experi-
mented A ceremonial of some sort, you mean? A
performance, a ritual or what ?"
Father Collins lowered his voice, becoming more earnest,
more impressive:
"Beauty, the arts," he whispered, "can alone provide a
vehicle for the expression of those Intelligences which are
the cosmic powers. A performance of some sort possibly
since there must be sound and movement. A bridge
between us, between our evolution and their own, might,
I believe, be thus constructed. Art is only great when it
provides a true form for the expression of an eternal cosmic
power. By combining we might provide a means for their
manifestation "
"A body of thought, as it were, through which our 'N. H.'
might become articulate? Is that your idea?"
Behind the question lay something new, it seemed, as
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 343
though, while listening to the exposition of an odd mystical
conception, his mind had been busy with a preoccupation,
privately but simultaneously, of his own. "In what way
precisely do you suggest the arts might combine to provide
this 'body' ? " he asked, a faint tremor noticeable iin the
lowered voice.
"That," replied Father Collins promptly, never at a loss,
"we should have to think about. Inspiration will come to
us probably through him. Ceremonial, of course, has
always been an attempt in this direction, only it has left
the world so long that people no longer know how to con-
struct a real one. The ceremonials of to-day are ugly,
vulgar, false. The words, music, colour, gestures every-
thing must combine in perfect harmony and proportion
to be efficacious. It is a forgotten method."
"And results how would they come?"
"The new wisdom and knowledge that result are sud-
denly there in the members of the group. The Power has
expressed itself. Not through the brain, of course, but,
rather, that the new ideas, having been acted out, are sud-
denly there. There has been an extension of consciousness.
A group consciousness has been formed, and "
"And there you are!" Dr. Fillery, moving his foot
unperceived, had touched a bell beneath the table. The
foot, however, groped and fumbled, as though unsure of
itself.
"You learn to swim by swimming, not by talking about
it." Father Collins was prepared to talk on for another
hour, "If we can devise the means and I feel sure we
can we shall have formed a bridge between the two
evolutions "
Nurse Robbins entered with apologies. A case upstairs
demanded the doctor's instant attendance. Dr. Devonham
was engaged.
"One thing," insisted Father Collins, as they shook hands
and he got up to go, "one thing only you would have to
fear." He was very earnest. Evidently the signs of
Si4 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
struggle, of fierce conflict in the other's face he did not
notice.
"And that is?" A hand was on the door.
"If successful if we provide this means of expression
for him we provide also the means of losing him."
"Death?" He opened the door with rough, unnecessary
Yiotence.
"Escape. He would no longer need the body he now uses.
He would remember and be gone. In his place you would
have LeVaflon again only. I'm afraid," he added, "that
he already is remembering !"
His final words, as Nurse Robbins deftly hastened his
departure in the ball, were a promise to communicate the
results of his further reflections, and a suggestion that his
cottage by the river would be a quiet spot in which to talk
the matter over again.
But Dr. Fillery, having thanked Nurse Robbins for her
prompt attendance to his bell, returned to the room and
sat for some time in a strange confusion of anxious
thoughts. A singular idea took shape in him that Father
Collins had again robbed his mind of its unspoken content
That sensitive receptive nature had first perceived, then
given form to the vague, incoherent dreams that lurked
in tiie innermost recesses of his hidden self.
Yet, if that were so and if "N. H." already was
"ranembermg^ !
A wave of shadow crept upon him, darkening his hope,
his enthusiasm, his very life. For another part of him
knew quite well the value to be attributed to what Father
Coffins had said.
Instinctivery his mind sought for Devonham. But it did
not occur to him at the moment to wonder why this was so.
CHAPTER XXVI
SPRING had come with her sweet torment of delight,
her promises, her passion, and London lay washed and
perfumed beneath April's eager sun. An immense,
persuasive glamour was in the sky. The whole earth caught
up a swifter gear, as the magic of rich creative life poured
out of "dead" soil into flower, insect, bird and animal .
The prodigious stream omitted no single form; every
"body" pulsed and blossomed at full strength. The hidden
powers in each seed emerged. And it was from the
inanimate body of the earth this flood of increased vitality
rose.
Into Edward Fillery, strolling before breakfast over the
wet lawn of the enclosed garden, the tide of new life rose
likewise. It was very early, the flush of dawn still near
enough for the freshness of the new day to be even-where.
The greater part of the huge city was asleep. He was
alone with the first birds, the dew, the pearl and gold of
the sun's slanting rays. He saw the slates and chimneys
glisten. Spring, like a visible presence, was passing across
the town, bringing the amazing message that all obey yet
no man under~tands.
"This is its touch upon the blossomed rose,
The fashion of its hand shaped lotus-leaves;
In dark soil and the silence of the seeds
The robe of spring it weaves,
" It maketh and unmaketh, mending all ;
What it hath wrought is better than had been;
Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans,
Its wistful hands between."
345
316 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
The lines came to his memory, while upon his mind
fell lovely and wonderful impressions. It was as though
the subconsciousness of the earth herself emerged with the
spring, producing new life, new splendour everywhere. Out
of a single patch of soil the various roots drew material
they then fashioned into such different and complicated
outlines as daisy, lily, rose, and a hundred types of tree.
From the same bit of soil emerged these intricate patterns
and designs, these different forms. At this very moment,
while his feet left dark tracks across the silvery lawn, the
process was going steadily forward all over England.
Beneath those very feet up rushed the power into all con-
ceivable bodies. Colour, music, form, marvellously organ-
ized, making no mistakes, were turning the world into a
vast, delicious garden.
Form, colour, sound! From his own hidden region rose
again the flaming hope and prophecy. He stooped and
picked a daisy, examining with rapt attention its perfect
little body. Who, what made this astonishing thing, that
was yet among the humbler forms? What intelligence
devised its elaborate outline, guarded, cared for, tended it,
ensured its growth and welfare? He gazed at its white
rays tipped with crimson, its several hundred florets, its
composite design. The spring life had been pouring through
it until he picked it. Through the huge mass of earth's
body its tiny roots had drawn the life it needed. This
power was now cut off. It would die. The process, as
with everything else, was "automatic and unintelligent!"
It seemed an incredible explanation. The old familiar ques-
tion troubled him, but he saw it abruptly now from a new
angle.
"We built it," came a voice so close that it seemed be-
hind him, for when at first he turned, startled, and yet
not startled, he saw no figure standing; "we who work
in darkness, yet who never die, the Hidden Ones who
build and weave inside and out of sight. You have de-
stroyed our work of ages. . . ."
347
A pang of sudden regret and anguish seized him. He
stood still and stared in the direction whence he thought
the voice had come, but no form, no outline, no body that
could have produced a sound, a voice, was visible. A
blackbird flew with its shrill whistle over the -enclosing wall,
and the gardener, up unusually early, was now moving
slowly past the elms at the far end, some two hundred
yards away. The old man, he remembered, had been telling
him only the day before that the life in his plants this
year had been prodigious and successful beyond his whole
experience. It puzzled him. Something of reverence, of
superstition almost, had lain in the man's voice and eyes.
"Who are you?" whispered Fillery, still holding the
"dead" broken flower in his hand and staring about him.
He was aware that the sound from which the voice had
come, detaching itself, as it were, into articulate syllables
out of a general continuous volume, had not ceased. It
was all about him, softly murmuring. Was it in himself
perhaps? An intense inner activity, like the pressure o?
an enveloping tide, that was also in space, in the soil, the
body of the planet, rose in him too. And it seemed to
him that his mind was suddenly in process of being shaped
and fashioned into a new "body of understanding"; a new
instrument of Qnderstan^mg.
" This is its work upon the things ye see :
The unseen things are more; men's hearts and minds,
The thoughts of peoples and their ways and wills,
These, too, the great Law binds."
"I know," he exclaimed, this time with acceptance that
omitted the doubt he had first felt. "I know who you
are" . . . and even as he said the words, there dropped
into him, it seemed, some knowledge, some hint, some
wonder that lay, he well knew, outside all human experience.
It was as though some cosmic power brushed gently against
and through his being, but a power so alien to known
human categories that to attempt its expression in
348 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
human terms language, reason, imagination even were to
mutilate it. Yet, even for its partial, broken manifestation,
human terms were alone available, since without these it
must remain unperceived, he himself unaware of its
existence.
He was, however, aware of its presence, its existence.
All that was left to him therefore was his own personal
interpretation. Herein, evidently, lay the truth for him;
this was the meaning of his "acceptance." It was, in some
way, a renewal of that other vision he called the Flower
Hill and Flower Music experience.
"I know you," he repeated, his voice merging curiously
in the general underlying murmur of the morning. "You
belong to the bodiless, the deathless ones who work and
build and weave eternally. Form, sound, colour are your
instruments, the elements your tools. You wove this
flower," he fingered the dying daisy, "as you also shaped
this body" he tapped his breast "and you built as well
this mind "
He stopped dead. Two things arrested him: the feeling
that the ideas were not primarily his own, but derived from
a source outside himself ; and a sudden intensification of
the flaming hope and prophecy that burst up as with new
meaning into the words "mind" and "body."
The broken body of the flower slipped from his fingers
and fell upon the body of the earth. He looked down at
its now empty form through which no life flowed, and
his eye passed then to his own body beating with intense
activity, and thence to the bodies of the trees, the darting
birds, the gigantic sun now peering magnificently along the
heavens. Body! A body was a form through which life
expressed itseTffa vehicle of expression by means of which
life manifested, an instrument it used. But a body of
thought was a true phrase too. And with the words, shaped
automatically in his brain, a new light flashed and flooded
him with its waves.
"A body of thought, a mental body" the phrase went
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 349
humming and flowing strangely through him. A body of
thought! Father Collins, he remembered, had used some
such wild language, only it had seemed empty words with-
out intelligible meaning. Whence came the intense new
meaning that so suddenly attached itself to the familiar
phrase? Whence came the thrilling deep conviction that
new, greater knowledge was hovering near, and that for
its expression a new body must be devised ? And what was
this new knowledge, this new power? Whence came the
amazing certainty in him that a new way was being shown
to him, a means of progress for humanity that must other-
wise flounder always to its average level of growth, develop-
ment, then invariably collapse again?
"We built it," ran past him through the air again, or
rose perhaps from the stirred depths of his own subcon-
scious being, or again, dropped from a hidden rushing star.
"The more perfect and adequate the form, the greater the
ffowjjf fiTef'oT knowledge, of power it can express. No
mind, no intellect, can convey a message that transcends
human experience. Yet there is a way."
The new knowledge was there, if only the new vehicle
suited to its expression could be devised. . . .
The stream of life pouring through him became more
and more intense ; some power of perception seemed grow-
ing into white heat within him; transcending the limited
senses ; becoming incandescent. This .tide of sound, in-
audible to ordinary ears, was thejmusic which isTnseparable
from the rhythm that underlies all forms, the music of the
earth's manifold activities now pouring"m vibrations huge
and tiny all round and through him. He turned instinc-/
tively.
~You . , . !" exclaimed the doctor in him, as though
rebuke, reproval stirred. "You here ... !"
It seemed to him that the figure of "N. H.," embodying
as it were a ray of sunlight, stood beside him.
"We," came the answer, with a smile that took the
sparkling sunlight through the very face. "We are all about
350 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
you," added the voice with a rhythm that swamped all
denial, all objection, bringing an exultant exhilaration in
their place. "We come from what always seems to you a
Valley of sun and flowers, where we work and play behind
the appearances you call the world."
"The world," repeated Fillery. "The universe as well."
The voice, the illusion of actual words, both died away,
merging in some perplexing fashion into another appear-
ance, perhaps equally an illusion so far as the senses were
concerned the phenomenon men call sight. Instead of
hearing, that is, he now suddenly saw. Something in the
arrangement of light caught his attention, holding it. The
deep, central self in him, that which interprets and de-codes
the reports the senses bring, employed another mode.
The figure of "N. H." still was definite enough in form
indeed, yet at the same time taking the rays into itself as
though it were a body of light. There was no transparency,
of course, nor was this clear radiance seen by Fillery for
the first time, but rather that his natural shining was caught
up and intensified by the morning sunshine. A body of
light, none the less, seemed a true description of what Fillery
now saw. This sunshine filled the air, the space all round
him, the entire lawn and garden shone in a sparkling flood
of dancing brilliance. It blazed. The figure of "N. H."
was merely a portion of this blazing. As a focus, but one
of many, he now thought of it. And about each focus was
the toss and fling of lovely, ever- rising spirals.
Across the main stream came then another pulsing move-
ment, hardly discernible at first, and similar to an under-
swell that moves the sea against the wave so that the eye
perceives it only when not looking for it. This contrary
motion, it soon became apparent, went in numerous, almost
countless directions, so that, within and below its com-
plicated wave-tracery, he was aware of yet other motions,
crossing and interlacing at various speeds, until the space
about him seemed to whirl with myriad rhythms, yet with-
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 351
out the least confusion. These rhythms were of a hundred
different magnitudes, from the very tiny to the gigantic,
and while the smallest were of a radiant brilliance that
made the sunshine pale, the larger ones seemed distant,
their light of an intenser quality, though of a quality he had
never seen before. These were strangely diffused, these
bigger ones "distant" was the word that occurred to him,
although that inner brilliance which occurs in dreams, in
imaginative moments, the nameless glow that colours mental
vision, described them better. Moreover they wore colours
the human eye had never seen, while the smallest rhythms
were lit with the familiar colours of the prism.
He stood absorbed, fascinated, drinking in the amazing
spectacle, as though the glowing spirals of fire communi-
cated to his inmost being a heat and glory of creative power.
He was aware of the creative stream of spring in his own
heart, pouring from the body of the earth on which he
stood, drenching mind, nerves and even muscles with
concentrated life. His subconscious being rose and
stretched its wings. All, all was possible. A sensation of
divine deathlessness possessed mm. The limitations of his
ofdirrary human faculties and powers were overborne, so
that he felt he could never again face the mournful prison
that caged him in. The jneaning of escape became pjain
to him.
~TTe~saw the invisible building Intelligences at work.
He was aware then suddenly of purpose, of intention.
The seeming welter of the waves of coloured light, of the
immense and tiny rhythms, the intricate streams of vibrat-
ing, pulsing, throbbing movements were, he now perceived,
marvellously co-ordinated. There was a focus, a vortex,
towards, which all rushed with a power so prodigious that
a sense of terror touched him. He suddenly became con-
scious of a pattern forming before his eyes, hanging in
empty space, shining, soft with light and beauty. It be-
came, he saw, a geometric design. An idea of crystals,
352 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
frost-forms, a spider's web hung with glistening dewdrops
shot across his memory. The spirals whirled and sang
about it.
This outline, he next perceived, was the focus to which
the light, heat, colour all contributed their particular touch
and quality. It glowed now in the centre of the vortex.
So overwhelming, however, was the sense of the stupendous
power involved that, as he phrased it afterwards, it seemed
he watched the formation of some mighty sun. It was the
whirling of those billion-miled sheets of incandescent fires
that attend the birth of a nebula he watched. The power,
at any rate, was gigantic.
He stood trembling before a revelation that left him lost,
shelterless, bereft of any help that his little self might sum-
mon when, suddenly, with an emotion of strange tender-
ness, he saw the great rhythms become completely domi-
nated by the very smallest of all. The same instant the
pattern grew sharply outlined, perfect in every detail, as
though the focus of powerful glasses cleared and the pat-
tern hung a moment exquisitely fashioned in space beneath
his eyes before it sank slowly to the ground. It remained
in an upright position on the grass at his feet a daisy,
growing in the earth, alive, its tiny delicate face taking the
sunlight and the morning wind.
With a shock he then realized another thing: it was the
very daisy he had broken, uprooted, killed a few minutes
before.
He stooped, one hand outstretched as though to finger
its wee white petals, but found instead that he was listen-
ing listening to a sweet faint music that rose from the
surface of the lawn, from grass and flowers, running in
waves and circles, like the vibrations of gentle wind across
a thousand strings. It was similar, though less in volume,
to the sound he had heard in the presence of "N. H." He
rose slowly to an upright position, dazed, bewildered, yet
rapt with the wonder of the whole experience.
"N. H. !" he heard his voice exclaim, its sound merging
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 353
in the growing volume of music all about him. "N. H. !"
he cried again. "This is your work, your service ... !"
But he could not see him; his figure was no longer
differentiated from the ever-moving sea of light that filled
space wherever he looked. The same play of brilliance
shone and glistened everywhere, whirling, ever shifting as
in vortices of intricate geometrical designs, dancing, inter-
penetrating, and with a magnificence of colour that caught
his breath away. There were remarkable flashings, and
two of these flashings blazed suddenly together, forming an
immense physiognomy, an expression, rather, as of a
mighty face. The same instant there were a hundred of
these mighty brilliant visages that pierced through the sea
of whirling colour and gazed upon him, close, terrific, with
a power and beauty that left thought without even a ghost
of language to describe them. Their glory lay beyond all
earthly terms. He recognized them. These mighty outlines
he had seen before.
His mind then made an effort ; he tried to think ; memory
and reason strove with emotion and sensation. The forms,
the faces, the powers at once grew fainter. They faded
slowly. The whirling vortices withdrew in some extra-
ordinary way, the colour paled, the sound grew thinner,
ever more distant, the great weaving designs dissolved. The
lovely spirals all were gone. He saw the garden trees again,
the flower beds. Space emptied, showing the morning sun-
shine on roofs and chimney-pots.
"We have rebuilt, remade it," he heard faintly, but he
heard also the roar and boom of the gigantic rhythms as
they withdrew, not spatially, so much as from his con-
sciousness that was now contracting once more, till only
the fainter sounds of the smaller singing patterns, the
Flower Music as he had come to call it, reached his ears.
Words and music, like voices known in dreams, seemed
interwoven. He remembered the huge faces, with their
bright confidence and glory, rising through the sunlight,
peering as through a mirror at him, radiant and of imperish-
354 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
able beauty. The words, perhaps, he attached himself, his
own interpretations of their ringing motions.
The sounds died away. He reeled. The expansion and
subsequent contraction of consciousness had been too rapid,
the whole experience too intense. He swayed, unsure of
his own identity. He remembered vaguely that tears filled
his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, that the destruction
of a lovely form had caused him a peculiar anguish, and
that its recreation produced an intolerable joy, bringing
tears of happiness. An arm caught him as he swayed.
The accents of a voice he knew were audible close beside
him. But at first he did not understand the words, feeling
only a dull pain they caused.
"Their imperishable beauty! Their divine loveliness!"
he stammered, recognizing the face and voice. He flung
his arms wide, gazing into the now empty air above the
London garden. "The great service they eternally fulfil
oh, that we all might " He made a gesture towards
the other houses with their sightless, shuttered windows.
"I know, I know," came in the familiar tones. "But
come in now, come in, Edward, with me. I beg you
before it is too late." Paul Devonham's voice shook so that
it was hardly recognizable. The skin of his face was white.
He wore a haggard look.
"Too late!" repeated the other; "it is always too late.
The world will never see. Their eyes are blinded." An
intolerable emotion swept him. He stared suddenly at his
colleague, an immense surprise in him. "But you, Paul!"
he exclaimed. "You understand! Even you !"
Devonham led him slowly into the house. There was
protection in his manner, in voice and gesture there was
deep affection, respect as well, but behind and through
these flickered the signs of another unmistakable emotion
that Fillery at first could hardly credit of pity, was it?
Of something at any rate he dared not contemplate.
"Even I," came in quick, low tones, "even I, Edward,
understand. You forget. I was once alone with him"
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 355
the voice sank to a rapid whisper "in the mountain valley."
Devonham's expression was curious. He raised his tone
again. "But not now, not now, I beg of you. Not yet,
at any rate. You will be cast out, judged insane, your work
destroyed, your career ruined, your reputation " His
excitement betrayed itself in his bright eyes and unusual
gestures. He was shaken to the core. Fillery turned upon
him. They were in the corridor now. He flung his arm
free of the restraining hand.
"You know!" he cried, "yet would keep silent!" His
voice choked. "You saw what I saw: new sources open,
the offer made, the channels accessible at our very door,
yet you would refuse "
"Not one in ten million," came the hard rejoinder,
"would believe." The voice trembled. "We have no proof.
Their laws of manifestation are unknown to us, and such
glimpses are but glimpses useless and dangerous." He
whispered suddenly: "Besides what are they? What,
after all, are we dealing with?
"We can experiment," interrupted his companion
quickly.
"How? Of what possible value?"
"You felt what I felt? In your own being you ex-
perienced the revelation too, and yet you use such words!
New forces, new faculties, Beings from another order oT
incalculable powers to ennoble, to bless, to inspire! The
creation of higher forms through which new, greater life
and knowledge, shall manifest!"
He could hardly find the words he sought, so bright was
the hope and wonder in his heart still. "Think at a
time like this what humanity might gain. Creative powers,
Paul, creative ! Acting directly on the subconscious selves
of everybody, intensifying every individual, whether he
understands and believes or not! The gods, Paul and
nothing less You saw the daisy "
Devonham seized both of his companion's hands, as he
heard the torrent of wild, incoherent words : "You'll have
356 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
the entire world against you," he interrupted. "Why seek
crucifixion for a dream?" Then, as his hands were again
flung off, he turned, a ringer suddenly on his lips. "Hush,
hush, Edward !" he whispered. "The house is sleeping still.
You'll wake them all."
There was a new, strange authority about him. Dr.
Fillery controlled himself. They went upstairs on tiptoe.
"Listen !" murmured Devonham, as they reached the first-
floor landing. "That's what woke me first and led me
to his room, but only to find it empty. He was already
gone. I saw him join you on the lawn. I watched from
the open window. Then I lost him. . . . Listen!" He
was trembling like a child.
The sound still echoed faintly, distant, rising and falling,
sweet and very lovely, and hardly to be distinguished from
the musical hum of wind that sighs and whispers across
the strings of an aeolian harp. To one man came incredible
sensations as they paused a moment. Dim though the land-
ing was, there still seemed a tender luminous glow pervad-
ing it.
"They're everywhere," murmured Fillery, "everywhere
and always about us, though in different space. Through
and behind and inside everything that happens, helping,
building, constructing ceaselessly. Oh, Paul, how can you
doubt and question value? Behind every single form and
body, physical or mental, they operate divinely "
"Mental ! Edward, for God's sake "
Devonham stepped nearer to him with such abruptness
that his companion stopped. The pallor of the assistant's
face so close arrested his words a moment. They held
their breath, listening together side by side. The sounds
grew fainter, died away in the stillness of the early morn-
ing, then ceased altogether. It was not the first time they
had listened thus to the strange music, nor was it the first
time that Fillery entered the room alone. As once before,
his colleague remained outside, watching, waiting, half
seduced, it seemed, yet vehemently against a sympathetic
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 357
attitude. He watched his chief go in, he saw the expression
on his face. Upon his own, behind a mild expectancy, lay
a look of pain.
"Empty !" He heard the startled exclamation.
And instantly Devonham was at his side, a firm hand
upon his arm, his eyes taking in an unused bed, a window
opened wide, a glow of light and heat the early sunshine
could not possibly explain. The perfume, as of flowers
in the air, he noted too, and a sense of lightness, fresh-
ness, sweetness about the atmosphere that produced hap-
piness, exhilaration. The room throbbed, as it were, with
invisible waves of some communicable power even he could
not deny. But of "N. H.," the recent occupant, there was
no sign.
"In the garden still. I lost sight of him somehow. I
told you."
Fillery crossed quickly to the window, his colleague with
him, looking out upon a lawn and paths that held no figure
anywhere. The gardener was not in sight. Only the birds
were visible among the daisies. The quiet sunlight lay as
usual upon leaves and flowers waving in the breeze. "He
came in," Fillery went on rapidly under his breath. "He
must have slipped back when "
The sound of steps and voices behind them in the corridor
brought both men round with a quick movement, as Nurse
Robbins, her arm linked in that of "N. H.," stood in the
open doorway. Her face was radiant, her eyes alight, her
breath came unevenly, and one might have thought her
caught midway in some ecstatic dance that still left its joy
and bliss stamped on her pretty face. Only she looked
more than pretty ; there was beauty, a fairy loveliness about
her that betrayed an intense experience of some inner kind.
At the sight of the two doctors she rapidly composed
herself, leading her companion quietly into the room. "He
was upstairs, sir," she said respectfully but breathlessly
somewhat, and addressing herself, Fillery noticed, to Devon-
ham and not to himself. "He was going from room to room,
358 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
talking to the patients er singing to them. It was the
singing woke me "
"Upstairs!" exclaimed Devonham. "He has been up
there!"
She broke off as Fillery came forward and took "N. H."
by the hands, dismissing her with a gesture she was quick
to understand. Devonham went with her hurriedly, intent
upon a personal inspection at once.
"Your service called you," said Fillery quietly, the moment
they were alone. "I understand!" Through the contact
of the hands waves of power entered him, it seemed. About
the face was light, as though fire glowed behind the very
skin and eyes, producing the effect almost of a halo.
"They came for me, and I must go." The voice was
deep and wonderful, with prolonged vibrations. "I have
found my own. I must return where my service needs me,
for here I can do so little."
"To your own place where you are ruler of your fate,"
the other said slowly. "Here you "
"Here," came the quick interruption, while the voice lost
its resonance, fading as it were in sadness, "here I die."
Even the radiance of his face, although he smiled, dimmed
a little on that final word. "I can help where I belong
not here." The light returned, the music came back into
the amazing voice.
"The daisy," whispered Fillery, joy rising in him
strangely.
"Nature," floated through the air like music, "is my
place. With human beings I cannot work. It is too much,
and I only should destroy. They are not ready yet, for
our great rhythms injure them, and they cannot under-
stand."
Trembling with emotions he could neither define nor
control, Fillery led him to the window.
"Even in this little back-garden of a London house," he
murmured, "among, so to speak, the humble buttercups and
daisies of our life! The creative Intelligences at work,
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 359
building, ever building the best forms they can. You re-
make a broken daisy" his voice rose, as the great shining
face so close lit with its flaming smile "you re-make as
well our broken minds. In the subconscious hides our
creative power that you stimulate. It is with that and that
alone you work. It hides in all of us, though the artist
alone perceives or can use it. It is with that you work "
"With you, dear Fillery, I can work, for you help me
to remember. You feel the big rhythms that we bring."
Dr. Fillery started, peered about him, listened hard. Was
it the trees, shaking in the morning wind, that rustled?
Was it a voice? The dancing leaves reflected the sunshine
from a thousand facets. The sound accompanied, rather
than interrupted, his own speech. He turned back to "N.
H." with passionate enthusiasm.
"Using beauty the artists the creative powers of the
Race," he went on, "we shall create together a new body,
a new vehicle, through which your powers can express
themselves. The intellect cannot serve you ... it is the
creative imagination of those who know beauty that you
seek. You are inarticulate in this wretched body. We shall
make a new one "
"They have come for me and I must go n
"We will work together. Oh, stay stay with me !**
"I have found the way. I have remembered. I must go
back "
The wind died down, the leaves stopped rustling, the sun-
shine seemed to pale as though a cloud passed over the sky.
The words he had heard resolved themselves into the morn-
ing sounds, the singing of the birds. Had they been words
at all? Bewilderment, like a pain, rushed over him. He
knew himself suddenly imprisoned, caught.
"I have remembered," he heard in quiet tones, but the
voice dead, no resonance, no music in it. And across the
room he saw suddenly Paul Devonham just inside the door,
returned from his inspection. Beside him stood LeVallon.
An extraordinary reaction instantly took place in him.
360 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
A lid was raised, a shutter lifted, a wall fell flat. He
hardly knew how to describe it. Was it due to the look of
anxiety, of tenderness, of affectionate, of protective care
he saw plainly upon his colleague's face? He could not
say. He only knew for certain in that instant that Paul
Devonham's main preoccupation was with himself; that
the latter regarded him exactly as he regarded any other
yes, that was the only word any other patient; that he
looked after him, tended, guarded, cared for him and that
this watchful, experienced observation had been going on
now for a long, long time.
The authority in his manner became abruptly clear as
day. Devonham watched over him; also he watched him.
For days, for weeks, this had been his attitude. For the
first time, in this instant, as he saw him lead away LeVallon
into his own room and close the door, Fillery now perceived
this. He experienced a violent revulsion of mind. In a
flash a hundred details of the recent past occurred to him,
chief among them the fact that, more and more, the con-
trol of the Home and its occupants had been taken over,
Fillery himself only too willing, by his assistant. A moment
of appalling doubt rose like a black cloud. . . .
He heard Paul telling LeVallon to begin his breakfast,
just as the door closed, and he noted the authoritative
tone of voice. The next minute he and his colleague were
alone together.
"Paul," said the chief quickly, but with a calm assurance
that anticipated a favourable answer, "they, at any rate,
are all right?"
Devonham nodded his head. "No harm done," he replied
briefly. "In fact, as you know, he rather stimulates them
than otherwise."
"I know."
He felt, for the first time in their years of close relation-
ship, a breath of suspicion enter him. There was a look
upon his colleague's face he could not quite define. It
baffled him.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 361
"Of course, I know-
He stopped, for the undecipherable look had strengthened
suddenly. He thought of a gaoler.
"Paul," he said quickly, "what's the matter? What's
wrong with you?"
He drew back a pace or two and watched him.
"With me nothing, Edward. Nothing at all." The tone
was grave with anxiety, yet had this new authority in it.
A feeling of intolerable insecurity came upon him, a sen~
sation as though he balanced on air, yet its cause, its origin,
easily explained: the support of his colleague's mind was
taken from him. Paul's attitude was clear as day to him.
He was a gaoler. . . . He recalled again the recent detail,
brightly significant that Nurse Robbins had turned to Paul,
rather than to himself.
"With me, then you think ?" His voice hardly sounded
like his own. He looked about him for support, found an
arm-chair, sat down in it. "You're strange, Paul, very
strange," he whispered. "What do you mean by 'there's
something wrong with me'?"
Devonham's expression cleared slightly and a kindly,
sympathetic smile appeared, then vanished. The grave look
that Fillery disliked reappeared.
"What d'you mean, Paul Devonham?" came the repeti-
tion, in a louder, more challenging voice. "You're watching
me as though I were" he laughed without a trace of
mirth "a patient." He leaned forward. "Paul, you've
been watching me for a long time. Out with it, now. What
is it?"
Devonham, who had kept silent, drew some papers from
his pocket, a bundle of rolled sheets.
"Of course," he said gently, "I always watch you. For
that's how I learn. I learn from you, Edward, more than
from anybody I know."
But Dr. Fillery, his eyes fixed upon the sheaf of papers,
had recognized them. His own writing was visible along
the uneven edges. They were the description he had set
362 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
down of his adventure on Flower Hill, of the scenes be-
tween "N. H." and Lady Gleeson, between "N. H." and
Nayan, the autobiographical description with "N. H." and
Nurse Robbins soon after his arrival, when Fillery had so
amazingly found his own mind as he believed identified
with his patient's.
Devonham snapped off the elastic band that held the
sheaf together. "Edward, I've read them. We have no
secrets, of course. I've read them carefully. Every word
my dear fellow."
"Yes, yes," replied the other, while something in him
wavered horribly. "I'm glad. They were meant for you to
read, for of course we have no secrets. I I do not expect
you to agree. We have never quite seen eye to eye have
we?" His voice shook. "You terrible iconoclast," he
added, betraying thus the nature of the fear that changed
his voice, then recognizing with vexation that he had done
so. "You believe nothing. You never will believe anything.
You cannot understand. With joy you would destroy what
I and others believe wouldn't you, Paul ?"
The deep sadness, the gravity on the face in front of him
stopped the tirade.
"I would save you, Edward," came the earnest, gentle
words, "from yourself. The powers of auto-suggestion, as
we know in our practice don't we? are limitless. If you
call that destroying "
From the adjoining room the clatter of knives and forks
was audible. Dr. Fillery listened a moment with a smile.
"Paul," he asked, his voice firm and sure again, "is your
chief patient in that room," indicating the door with his
head, "or in this?"
"In this," was the reply. "A wise man is always his own
patient and 'Physician, heal thyself his motto." He sat
down beside his chief. His manner changed; there was
affection, deep solicitude, something of passionate entreaty
even in voice and eyes and gestures. "There are features
here," he said in lowered tones, "Edward, we have not
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 363
understood, perhaps even we can never understand ; but we
have not, I think, sufficiently guarded against one thing
auto-suggestion. The role it plays in life is immense, in-
calculable; it is in everything we do and think, above all in
everything we believe. It is peculiarly powerful and active
in er unusual things "
"The sound the sounds you've heard them yourself,"
broke in his companion.
Devonham shrugged his thin shoulders. "He sings in a
peculiar way." As an aside, he said it, returning to his
main sermon instantly. "Let us leave details out," he cried ;
"it is the principle that concerns us. Edward, your complex
against humanity lies hard and rigid in you still. It has
never found that full recognition by yourself which can
resolve it. Your work, your noble work, is but a partial
expression. The kernel of this old complex in you remains
unrelieved, undischarged because still unrecognized. And,
further, you are continually adding to the repression which"
even Devonham paused a second before using such a
word to such a man "is poisoning you, Edward, poisoning
you, I repeat."
"You saw you saw the rebuilding of the daisy" an
odd whisper of insecurity ran through the quiet words, a
statement rather than a question "you realize, at any rate,
that chance has brought us into contact with Powers,
creative Powers, of a new order "
"Let us omit all details just now," interrupted the other,
a troubled, indecipherable look on his face. "The un-
doubted telepathy between your mind and mine nullifies
any such "
" powers of which we all have some faint counter-
part, at any rate, in our subliminal selves." Fillery had not
heard the interruption. "Powers by means of which we
may build for the Race new forms, new mental bodies, new
vehicles for life, for God, to manifest through more per-
fect, more receptive "
Devonham had suddenly seized both his hands and was
364 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
leaning closer to him. Something compelling, authoritative,
peculiarly convincing for a moment had its undeniable
effect, again stopping the flow of hurried, passionate, eager
words.
"There is one new form, new body," and the intensity in
voice and eyes drove the meaning deep, deep into his lis-
tener's mind and heart. "I wish to see you build. One, and
one only physical, mental, spiritual. But you cannot build
it, Edward alone!"
"Paul !" The other held up a warning hand ; the expres-
sion in his eyes was warning too. Their effect upon Devon-
ham, however, was nil. He was talking with a purpose
nothing could alter.
"She is still waiting for you," he went on with determina-
tion, "and already you have kept her waiting overlong."
In the tone, in the hard clear eyes as well, lay a suggestion
almost of tears.
He opened the door into the breakfast-room, but Fillery
caught his arm and stopped him. They could hear Nurse
Robbins speaking, as she attended as usual to her patient's
wants. Coffee was being poured out. There was a sound
of knives and plates and cups.
"One minute, Paul, one minute before we go in." He
drew him aside. "And what, Doctor Devonham, may I ask,
would you prescribe?" There was a curious mixture of
gentle sarcasm, of pity, of patient tolerance, yet at the same
time of sincere, even anxious, interest in the question. The
face and manner betrayed that he waited for the answer
with something more than curiosity.
There was no hesitancy in Devonham. He judged the
moment ripe, perhaps ; he was aware that his words would
be listened to, appreciated, understood certainly, and pos-
sibly, obeyed.
"Expression," he said convincingly, but in a lowered
voice. "The fullest expression, everywhere and always.
Let it all come. Accept the lot, believe the lot, welcome
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 365
the lot, and thus" he could not conceal the note of passion-
ate entreaty, of deep affection "avoid every atom of
repression. In the end in the long run your own best
judgment must prevail."
They smiled into each other's eyes for a moment in
silence, while, instinctively and automatically, their hands
joined in a steady clasp.
"Bless you, old fellow," murmured the chief. "As if I
didn't know ! It's the treatment you've been trying on me
for weeks and months. As if I hadn't noticed !"
As they entered the breakfast-room, Nurse Robbins, with
flushed face and sparkling eyes, was pouring out the coffee,
leaning close over her patient's shoulder as she did so.
Fresh roses were in her cheeks as well as on the table.
"This is its touch upon the blossomed maid," whispered
Fillery, with the quick hint of humour that belongs only to
the sane. At the same time the light remark was produced,
he well knew, by a part of himself that sought to remain
veiled from recognition. Any other triviality would have
done as well to cloak the sharp pain that swept him, and to
lead his listener astray. For in that instant, as they entered,
he saw at the table not "N. H.," but LeVallon the back-
ward, ignorant, commonplace LeVallon, an empty, untaught
personality, yet so receptive that anything anything
could be transferred to him by a strong, vivid mind, a mind,
for instance, like his own. . . .
The sight, for a swift instant, was intolerable and dev-
astating. He balanced again on air that gave him no sup-
port. He wavered, almost swayed. "N. H.," in that
horrible and painful second, did not exist, and never had
existed. The unstable mind, he comforted himself, ex-
periences dislocating extremes of attitude . . . for, at the
same time as he saw himself shaking and wavering without
solid support, he saw the figure of Paul Devonham, big,
important, authoritative, dominating the uncertainties of
life with calm, steady power.
366 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
In a fraction of a second all this came and went. He sat
down beside LeVallon, his eyes still twinkling with his
trivial little joke.
" 'N. H./ " he whispered to Devonham quickly, "has
escaped at last."
"LeVallon," came the whispered reply as quickly, "is
cured at last." And, to conceal an intolerable rush of pain,
of loss, of loneliness that threatened tears, he pointed to the
dropped eyes and blushing cheeks of the pretty nurse across
the table.
CHAPTER XXVII
TO Edward Fillery, the deep pain of frustration baffling
all his mental processes, the end had come with a
strange, bewildering swiftness. He knew there had been
a prolonged dislocation of his being, possibly, even a partial
loss of memory with regard to much that went on about
him, but he could not, did not, admit that no value or reality
had attached to his experiences. The central self in him had
projected a limb, an arm, that, feeling its way across the
confining wall of the prison house, groping towards an
unbelievably wonderful revelation of new possibilities, had
abruptly now withdrawn again. The dissociation in his
personality was over. He was, in other words, no longer
aware of "N. H." Like Devonham, he now did not "per-
ceive" "N. H.," but only LeVallon. But, unlike Devonham,
he had perceived him. . . .
He had met half-way a mighty and magnificent Vision.
Its truth and beauty remained for him enduring. The
revelation had come and gone. That its close was sudden,
simple, undramatic, above all untheatrical, satisfied him.
"N. H." had "escaped," leaving the commonplace LeVallon.
in his place. But, at least, he had known "N. H."
His whole being, an odd, sweet, happy pain in him,
yearned ever to the glorious memory of it all. The melan-
choly, the peculiar shyness he felt, were not without an
indefinite pleasure. His nature still vibrated to those haunt-
ing and inspiring rhythms, but his normal, earthly faculties,
he flattered himself, were in no sense permanently dis-
organized. Professionally, he still cared for LeVallon, dis-
enchanted dust though he might be, compared to "N.
H." . . . He approved of Devonham's proposal to take him
367
368 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
for a few days to the sea. He also approved of Paul's
advice that he should accept Father Collins' invitation to
spend a day or two at his country cottage. The Khilkoffs
would be there, father and daughter. The Home, in charge
of an assistant, could be reached in a few hours in case of
need. The magic of Devonham's wise, controlling touch
lay in every detail, it seemed. . . .
He saw the trio for Nurse Robbins was of the party
off to Seaford. "The final touches to his cure," Paul men-
tioned slyly, with a smile, as the guard whistled. But of
whose cure he did not explain. "He'll bathe in the sea," he
added, the reference obvious this time. "And when we
return I shall be best man. I've already promised !" There
was a triumph of skilled wisdom in both sentences.
"The time isn't ripe yet, Edward, for too magnificent
ideas. And your ideas have been a shade too magnificent,
perhaps." He talked on lightly, even carelessly. And, as
usual, there was purpose, meaning, "treatment" his friend
easily discerned it now in every detail of his attitude.
Fillery laughed. Through his mind ran Povey's sentence,
"Never argue with the once-born !" but aloud he said, "At
any rate, I've no idea that I'm Emperor of Japan or or
the Archangel Gabriel !" And the other, pleased and satis-
fied that a touch of humour showed itself, shook hands
firmly, affectionately, through the window as the train
moved off. LeVallon raised his hat to his chief and smiled
an ordinary smile. . . .
With the speed and incongruity of a dream these few
days slipped by, their happenings vivid enough, yet all set
to a curiously small scale, a cramped perspective, blurred a
little as by a fading light. Only one thing retained its bril-
liance, its intense reality, its place in the bigger scale, its
vast perspective remaining unchanged. The same immense
sweet rhythm swept Iraida and himself inevitably together.
Some deep obsession that hitherto prevented had been with-
drawn.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 369
She had called that very morning Paul's touch visible
here again, he believed, though he had not asked. He
looked on and smiled. After the ordeal of breakfast with
Devonham and LeVallon her visit was announced. It was
Paul, after a little talk downstairs, who showed her in.
With the radiance of a spring wild-flower opening to the
early sunshine, her unexpected visit to his study seemed
clothed. Unexpected, yes, but surely inevitable as well.
With the sweet morning wind through the open window,
it seemed, she came to him, the letter of invitation from
Father Collins in her hand. His own lay among his cor-
respondence, still untouched. Her perfume rose about him
as she explained something he hardly heard or followed.
"You'll come, Edward, won't you ? You'll come too."
"Of course," he answered. But it was a song he heard,
and no dull spoken words. She ran dancing towards him
through a million flowers; her hair flew loose along the
scented winds; her white limbs glowed with fire. He
danced to meet her. It was in the Valley that he caught
her hands and met her eyes. "It's happened," he heard
himself saying. "It's happened at last just as you said
it must. Escape! He has escaped!"
"But we shall follow after when the time comes,
Edward."
"Where the wild bee never flew!" . . .
"When the time comes," she repeated.
Her voice, her smile, her eyes brought him back sharply
into the little room. The furniture showed up again. The
Valley faded. He noticed suddenly that for the first time
she wore no flowers in her dress as usual.
"Iraida!" he exclaimed. "Then you knew!"
She bent her head, smiling divinely. She took both his
hands in hers. At her touch every obstacle between them
melted. His own private, personal inhibition he saw as the
trivial barriers a little child might raise. His complex
against humanity, as Paul called it, had disappeared. Their
minds, their beings, their natures became most strangely
370 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
one, he felt, and yet quite naturally. There was nothing
they did not share.
"With the first dawn," he heard her say in a low voice.
"Never never again," he seemed to hear, "shall we destroy
his their work of ages."
"A flower," he whispered, "has no need to wear a flower !"
He was convinced that she too had shared an experience
similar to his own, perhaps had even seen the bright, mar-
vellous Deva faces peering, shining. . . . He did not ask.
She said no more. Life flowed between them in an un-
troubled stream. . . .
Like the flow of a stream, indeed, things went past him,
yet with incidents and bits of conversation thus picked out
with vivid sharpness. The dissociation of his being was
still noticeable here and there, he supposed. The swell after
the storm took time to settle down. Slowly, however, the
waves that had been projected, leaping to heaven, returned
to the safe, quiet dead level of the normal calm. . . . The
depths lay still once more. And his melancholy passed a
little, lifted. He knew, at any rate, those depths were now
accessible.
"I've seen over the wall a moment," he said to himself.
"Paul is both right and wrong. What I've seen lies too far
ahead of the Race to be intelligible or of use. I should be
cast out, crucified, my other, simpler work destroyed. To
control rhythms so powerful, so different to anything we
now know, is not yet possible. They would shatter, rather
than construct." He smiled sadly, yet with resignation.
There was pain and humour in his eyes. "I should be
regarded as a Promethean merely, an extremist Promethean,
and probably be locked up for contravening some County
Council bye-law or offending Church and State. That's
where he, perhaps, is right Paul!" He thought of him
with affection and pity, with understanding love. "How
wise and faithful, how patient and how skilled within his
limits. The stable are the useful ; the stable are the leaders ;
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 371
the stable rule the world. People with steady if unvisioned
eyes like Paul, with money like Lady Gleeson. . . . But,
oh !" he sighed "how slow, ye gods ! how slow !" . . .
The visit was a strange one. Nayan sat between him and
her father in the motor. It was not far from London, the
ancient little house among the trees where Father Collins
secreted himself from time to time upon occasional
"retreats."
Within the grounds it might have been the centre of the
New Forest, but for the sound of tramcar bells that some-
times came jangling faintly through the thick screen of
leaves. There were old-world paved courtyards with sweet
playing fountains, miniature lawns, tangles of flowers, small
sunken gardens with birds of cut box and yew, stone nymphs,
and a shaggy, moss-grown Pan, whose hand that once held
the pipes had broken off. Suburbia lay outside, yet, by
walking wisely, it was possible to move among these delights
for half an hour, great trees ever rustling overhead, and a
clear small stream winding peacefully in and out with gentle
lapping murmurs. Nature here lay undisturbed as it had
lain for centuries.
The little ancient house, moreover, seemed to have grown
up with the green things out of the soil, so naturally, it
all belonged together. The garden ran indoors, it seemed,
through open doors and windows. Butterflies floated from
courtyard into drawing-room and out again, leaves blew
through dining-room windows, scurrying to another little bit
of lawn ; the sun and wind, even the fountains' spray, found
the walls no obstacle as though unaware of them. Bees
murmured, swallows hung below the eaves. It was, indeed,
a healing spot, a natural retreat. . . .
"I really believe the river rises in your library," exclaimed
Fillery, after a tour of inspection with his host, "and my
bedroom is in the heart of that big chestnut across the lawn.
Do my feet touch carpet, grass, or bark when I get out of
bed in the morning?"
372 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"I've learnt more here," began Father Collins, "than at all
the conferences and learned meetings I ever attended. . . ."
The group of four stood in the twilight by the playing
fountain where the dignified stone Pan watched the paved
little court, listening to the splash of the water and the wind
droning among the leaves. The lap of the winding stream
came faintly to them. The stillness cast a spell about them,
dropping a screen against the outer world.
"Hark!" said Father Collins, holding a curved hand to
his ear. "You hear the music . . . ?"
" 'Why, in the leafy greenwood lone
Sit you, rustic Pan, and drone
On a dulcet resonant reed?'"
He paused, peering across to the stone figure as for an
answer. All stood listening, waiting, only wind and water
breaking the silence. The bats were now flitting; overhead
hung the saffron arch of fading sunset. In a deep ringing
voice, very gruff and very low, Father Collins gave the
answer :
" 'So that yonder cows may feed
Up the dewy mountain passes,
Gathering the feathered grasses.'
"That's Pan's work," he said, laughing pleasantly, "Pan
and all his splendid hierarchy. Always at work, though
invisibly, with music, colour, beauty! . . ."
It was scraps like this that stood out in Fillery's memory,
adding to his conviction that Paul had enlisted even this
strange priest in his deep-laid plan. . . .
"Each man is saturated with certain ideas, thoughts,
phrases in a line of his own. These constitute his groove.
To go outside it makes him feel homeless and uncomfort-
able. Accustomed to its measurements and safe within
them, he interprets all he hears, reads, observes, according
to his particular familiar shibboleths, to which, as to a
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 373
standard of infallible criticism, he brings slavishly all that
is offered for the consideration of his judgment. A new
Idea stands little chance of being comprehended, much less
adopted. Tell him new things about the stars, the Stock
Exchange, the Stigmata up crops his Standard of ap-
proval or disapproval. He cannot help himself. His judg-
ment, based upon the limited content of his groove, operates
automatically. He condemns. An entirely new idea is
barely glanced at before it is rejected for the rubbish heap.
How, then, can progress come swiftly to a Race composed
of such individuals? Mass-judgment, herd-opinion gov-
erns everything. He who has original ideas is outcast, and
dwells lonely as the moon. How slow, ye Gods ! How
slow!" . . .
Only Fillery could not remember, could not be certain,
whether it was his host or himself that used the words.
Father Collins, as usual, was saying "all sorts of things,"
but addressed himself surely, to old Khilkoff most of the
time, the Russian, half angry, half amused, growling out his
comments and replies as he sat smoking heavily and enjoy-
ing the peaceful night scene in his own fashion. . . .
It was odd, none the less, how much that the wild priest
gabbled coincided with his own, with Fillery's, thoughts at
the moment. A peculiar melancholy, a mood of shyness
never known before, lay still upon him. The beauty of the
silent girl beside him overpowered him a little ; too wonder-
ful to hold, to own, she seemed. Yet they were deliciously,
uncannily akin. All his former self-created denials and
suppressions, hesitations and refusals had vanished. "N.
H." He wondered? had provided him with the fullest
expression he had ever known. A boundless relief poured
over him. He was aware of wholesome desire rising behind
his old high admiration and respect. . . .
He watched her once standing close to Pan's broken out-
line among the shadows, touching the mossy arm with white
fingers, and he imagined for an instant that she held the
vanished pipes.
374 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
"After an experience with Other Beings," Father Collins's-
endless drone floated to him, "shyness, they say, is felt.
Silence descends upon the whole nature" ... to which,
a little later, came the growling comment with its foreign
accent: "Talk may be pleasurable sometimes but it is
profitable rarely. . . ."
The talk flowed past and over him, occasional phrases,
like islands rising out of a stream, inviting his attention
momentarily to land and listen. . . . The girl, he now saw,
no longer stood beside the broken stone figure. She was
wandering idly towards the farther garden and the trees.
He burned to rise and go to her, but something held him.
What was it ? What could it be ? Some strange hard little
obstacle prevented. Then, suddenly, he knew what it was
that stopped him: he was waiting for that familiar pet
sentence. Once he heard that, the impetus to move, the
power to overcome his strange shyness, the certainty that
his whole being was at last one with itself again, would come
to him. It made him laugh inwardly while he recognized
the validity of the detail final symptoms of the obstructing
inhibitions, of the obstinate original complex.
The outline of the girl was lost now, merged in the
shadows beyond. He stirred, but could not get up to go. A
fury of impatience burned in him. Father Collins, he felt,
dawdled outrageously. He was talking jawing, Fillery
called it about extraordinary experiences. "Gradually, as
consciousness more and more often extends, the organs to
record such extensions will be formed, you see. ... If our
inventive faculties were turned inwards, instead of out-
wards for gain and comfort as they now are, we might know
the gods. . . ."
The sculptor's growl, though the words were this time
inaudible, had a bite in them. The other voice poured on
like thick, slow oil:
"What, anyhow, is it, then, that urges us on in spite of
all obstacles, denials, failures . . . ?"
Then came something that seemed leading up to the pet
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 375
sentence that was the signal he waited for nearer to it, at"
any rate:
". . . It's childish, surely, to go on merely seeking more
of what we have already. We should seek something
new. . . ."
A call, it seemed, came to him on the wind from the dark
trees. But still he could not move.
But, at last, out of a prolonged jumble of the two voices,
one growling, the other high pitched, came the signal he
somehow waited for. Even now, however, the speaker
delayed it as long as possible. He was doing it, of course,
on purpose. This was intentional, obviously.
". . . Yes, but a thing out of its right place is without
power, life, means of expression robbed of its context
which alone gives it meaning robbed, so to speak, of its
arms and legs without a body. . . ."
There, at least, was the definite proof that Father Collins
was doing this of deliberate, set purpose!
"Go on ! Yes, but, for God's sake, say it ! I want to be
off !" Fillery believed he shrieked the words, but apparently
they were inaudible. They remained unnoticed, at any rate.
". . . Hence the value of order, tidiness, you see. Often
a misplaced thing is invisible until replaced where it be-
longs. It is, as we say, lost. No movement is meaningless,
no walk without purpose. All your movements tend towards
your proper place. . . ."
A breeze blew the fountain spray aside so that its splash-
ing ceased for a brief second. From the rustling leaves
beyond came a faint murmur as of distant piping. But
into the second's pause had leaped the pet sentence:
"Only a being in his own place is the ruler of his fate."
The signal ! He was aware that the Russian cleared his
throat and spat unmusically, aware also that Father Collins,
a queer smile just discernible on his face in the gloom,
turned his head with a gesture that might well have been
an understanding nod. Both sound and gesture, however,
were already behind him. He was released. He was across
376 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
the paved courtyard, past the fountain, past the stone figure
of the silent old rough god and oft !
And as he went, finding his way instinctively among the
dark trees, that pet sentence went with him like a clarion
call, as though sweet piping music played it everywhere
about him. A thousand memories shut down with a final
snap. In the stage of his mind came a black-out upon a
host of inhibitions. There was an immense and glorious
sense of relief as though bitter knots were suddenly dis-
entangled, and some iron kernel of resistance that had
weighted him for years flowed freely at last in a stream of
happy molten gold. . . .
He found her easily. Where the trees thinned at the
farther edge he saw her figure, long before he came up with
her, outlined against the fading saffron. He saw her turn.
He saw her arms outstretched. He came up with her the
same minute, and they stood in silence for a long time,
watching the darkness bend and sink upon the landscape.
For, here, at this one edge of the tiny estate, the real
open country showed. Beyond them, in the twilight, lay
the silent fields like a gigantic brown and yellow carpet
whose shaken folds still seemed to tremble and run on
beneath the growing moon. Along a farther ridge the trees
and hedges passed in a ragged procession of strange figures,
defined sharply against the sky witches, queens and gob-
lins on the prowl, the ancient fairyland of the English coun-
tryside.
They still stood silent, side by side, touching almost, their
heat and perfume and atmosphere intermingling, looking out
across the quiet scene. He was aware that her mind stole
into his most sweetly, and that without knowing it his hand
had found her own, and that, presently, she leaned a little
against him. Their eyes, their mental sight as well, saw the
same things, he knew. The first stars peeped out, and they
looked up at them as one being looks, together.
"The wonder that you saw in him," he heard himself
saying. It was a statement, not a question.
THE BRIGHT MESSENGER 377
"Was yourself, of course," her voice, like his own, in the
rustle of the leaves, came softly. It continued his own
thought rather than replied to it. "The part you've held
down and hidden away all these years."
Her divination came to him with staggering effect. "You
always knew then ?"
"Always. The first day we met you took me into the
firm."
He was aware that everything about him pulsed and
throbbed with life, intelligence in every stick and stone.
Angelic beings marched on their wondrous business
through the sky. A mighty host pursued their endless
service with a network of huge and tiny rhythms. The
spirals of creative fire soared and danced. . . .
The moon emerged, sailing, sailing, as though no wind
could stop her lovely flight. She fled the stars themselves.
The clouds turned round to look at her, as, clearing their
hair, she passed onwards with her radiant smile. Heading
into the bare bosom of the sky, she blazed in her triumph of
loneliness, her icy prow set towards some far, unknown,
unearthly goal, which is the reason why men love her so.
"And my theories our theories?" he murmured into the
ear against his lips. "The way that has been shown to us ?"
Both arms were now about her, and he held her so close
that her words were but a warm perfumed breath to cover
his face as her hair was covering his eyes.
"We shall follow it together . . . dear."
It was as if some angel, stepping down the sky, came near
enough to fold them in a great rhythm of fire and wind.
Bright, mighty faces in a crowd rose round them, and,
through her hair, he saw familiar visible outlines of all the
common things melt out, showing for one gorgeous instant
the flashings and whirlings that was the workshop of Their
deathless service.
"Look! Look!" he whispered, pointing from the dark-
ening earth to the stars and sailing moon above. "They're
378 THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
everywhere! You can see them too? The bright messen-
gers ?"
For answer, she came yet closer against his side, holding
him more tightly to her, lifting her lips to his, so that in her
very eyes he saw the marvellous fire shine and flash. "We
shall build together, you and I," she whispered very softly,
"and with Their help, the sweetest and most perfect body
ever known. . . ."
But behind the magic of her words and voice, behind
their meaning and the steadying, understanding sympathy
he easily divined, he heard another sound, familiar as a
dream, yet fraught with some haunting significance he
already was forgetting almost had entirely forgotten.
From the centre of the earth it seemed to rise, a magnifi-
cent, deep, stupendous rhythm that created, at least, the
impression of a voice :
"I weave and I weave ... !" rolled forth, as though
the planet uttered. He stood waiting, transfixed, listening
intently.
"You heard?" he whispered.
"Everything," she said, tigh^/in his arms at once again,
her lips on his. "The very beating of your heart your
inmost thoughts as well."
THE END
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