The Fire Within

CHAPTER XVI. FRIENDSHIP

DAVID found himself enjoying his holiday a good deal. Blue skies and shining air, clear cold of the snows and radiant warmth of the spring sun, sweet sleep by night and pleasant companionship by day-all these were his portion. His own content surprised him. He had been so long in the dark places that he could scarcely believe that the shadow was gone, and the day clear again. He had been prepared to struggle manfully against the feeling for Mary which had haunted and tormented him for so long. To his surprise, he found that this feeling fell into line with the other symptoms of his illness. He shrank from thinking of it, as he shrank from thinking of his craving for drink, his sleepless nights, and his dread of madness. It was all a part of the same bad dream-a shadow among shadows, in a world of gloom from which he had escaped.

Elizabeth was a very good companion. It was too early to climb, but they took long walks, shared picnic meals, and talked or were silent just as the spirit moved them. It was the old boy and girl companionship come back, and it was a very restful thing. One day, when they had been married about a fortnight, David said suddenly:

“How did you do it, Elizabeth?”

They were sitting on a grassy slope, looking over a wide valley where blue mists lay. A little wind was blowing, and the upper air was clear. The grass on which they sat was short. It was full of innumerable small white and purple anemones. Elizabeth was sitting on the grass, watching the flowers, and touching first one and then another with the tips of her fingers.

“All these little white ones have a violet stain at the back of each petal,” was the last thing that she had said, but when David spoke she looked up, a little startled.

He was lying full length on a narrow ledge just above her, with his cap over his eyes to shield them from the sun, which was very bright.

“How did you do it, Elizabeth?” said David Blake.

Elizabeth hesitated. She could not see his face.

“What do you mean?”

“How did you do it? Was it hypnotism?”

“Oh, no-” There was real horror in her voice.

“It must have been.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said:

“Do you remember how interested we used to be in hypnotism, David?”

“Yes, that 's partly what made me think of it.”

“We read everything we could lay hands on-all the books on psychic phenomena-Charcot's experiments-everything. And do you remember the conclusion we came to?”

“What was it?”

“I don't think you 've forgotten. I can remember you stamping up and down my little room and saying, 'It's a damnable thing, Elizabeth, a perfectly damnable thing. There 's no end, absolutely none to the extent to which it undermines everything-I believe it is a much more real devil than any that the theologies produce.' That 's what you said nine years ago, David, and I agreed with you. We used quite a lot of strong language between us, and I don't feel called upon to retract any of it. Hypnotism is a damnable thing.”

David pushed the cap back from his eyes as Elizabeth spoke, and raised himself on his elbow, so that he could see her face.

“There are degrees,” he said, “and it 's very hard to define. How would you define it?”

“It 's not easy. 'The unlawful influence of one mind over another'?”

“That 's begging the question. At what point does it become unlawful?-that 's the crux.”

“I suppose at the point when force of will overbears sense-reason-conscience. You may persuade a man to lend you money, but you may n't pick his pocket or hypnotise him.”

David laughed.

“How practical!”

Then very suddenly:

“So it was n't hypnotism. Are you sure?”

“Yes, quite sure.”

“But can you be sure? There 's such a thing as the unconscious exercise of will power.”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“There is nothing in the least unconscious in what I do. I know very well what I am about, and I know enough about hypnotism to know that it is not that. I don't use my will at all.”

“What do you do? How is it done?” His tone was interested.

“I think,” said Elizabeth slowly, “that it is done by realizing, by getting into touch with Reality. Things like sleeplessness, pain, and strain are n't right-they are n't normal. They are like bad dreams. If one wakes-if one sees the reality-the dream is gone.”

She spoke as if she were struggling to find words for some idea which filled her mind, but was hard to put into a communicable shape.

“It is life on the Fourth Dimension,” she said at last.

“Yes,” said David, “go on.” There was a slightly quizzical look in his eyes, but he was interested. “What do you mean by the Fourth Dimension?”

“We used to talk of that too, and lately I have thought about it a lot.”

“Yes?”

“It is so hard to put into words. Fourth Dimensional things won't get into Third Dimensional words. One has to try and try, and then a little scrap of the meaning comes through. That is why there are so many creeds, so many sects. They are all an attempt to express-and one can't really express the thing. I can't say it, I can only feel it. It is limitless, and words are limited. There are no bounds or barriers. Take Thought, for instance-that is Fourth Dimensional-and Love. Religion is a purely Fourth Dimensional thing, and we all guess and translate as best we may. In all religions that have life, apprehension rises above the creed and reaches out to the Real-the untranslatable.”

“Yes, that 's true; but go on-define the Fourth Dimension.”

“I can see it, you know. It 's another plane. It is the plane which permeates and inter-penetrates all other planes-universal, eternal, unchanging. It 's like the Fire of God-searching all things. It is the plane of Reality. Nothing is real which is not universal and unchanging and eternal. If one can realize that plane, one is amongst the realities, and all that is unreal goes out. 'There is no life but the Life of God, no consciousness but the Divine Consciousness.' I think that is the best definition of all: 'the Divine Consciousness.'“

He did not know that she was quoting, and he did not answer her or speak at all for some time. But at last he said:

“So I slept, because you saw me in the Divine Consciousness; is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“You did n't will that I should sleep?”

“Oh, no.”

“Are you doing it still?”

“Yes.”

“Every night?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth again.

David sat up. The mists in the valley beneath were golden, for the sun had dropped. As he looked, the gold turned grey, and the shadow of darkness to come rose out of the valley's depths, though the hill-slope on which they sat was warm and sunny yet. David turned and saw that Elizabeth was watching him.

“I want you to stop whatever it is you do,” he said abruptly.

“Very well.”

“I 'm not as ungrateful as that sounds-” He broke off, and Elizabeth said quickly:

“Oh, no.”

“You don't think it?”

“Why should I? You are well again. You don't need my help any more.”

A shadow like the shadow of evening came over her as she spoke, but her smile betrayed nothing.

They walked back to the hotel in silence.

David had wondered if he would sleep. He slept all night, the sweet sound sleep of health and a mind unburdened.

It was Elizabeth who did not sleep. She had walked with him through the valley of the shadow and he had come out of it a whole man again. Was she to cling to the shadow, because in the shadow David had clung to her? It came to that. She drove the thought home, and did not shirk the pain of it. They were come out into the light, and in the light he had no need of her. But this was not full daylight in which they walked-it was only the first chill grey of the dawn, and there is always a need of Love. Love needs must give, and giving, blesses and is blessed, for Love is of the realities-a thing immutable and all-pervading. No man can shut out Love.