“That is what the world says of God—­’I will not yield till I know!’ But it is as plastic clay in His hands, all the time, and it never knows!”

I was silent—­and there was a pause in which no sound was heard but the movement of the water under the little boat in which he stood.  Then—­

“Good-night!” he said.

“Good-night!” I answered, and moved by a swift impulse, I stooped and kissed the firm hand that rested so near me, gripping the edge of the port-hole.  He looked up with a sudden light in his eyes.

“Is that a sign of grace and consolation?” he asked, smiling—­“Well!  I am content!  And I have waited so long that I can wait yet a little longer.”

So speaking, he let go his hold from alongside the yacht, and in another minute had seated himself in the boat and was rowing away across the moonlit water.  I watched him as every stroke of the oars widened the distance between us, half hoping that he might look back, wave his hand, or even return again—­but no!—­his boat soon vanished like a small black speck on the sea, and I knew myself to be left alone.  Restraining with difficulty the tears that rose to my eyes, I shut the port-hole and drew its little curtain across it—­ then I sat down to read the letter he had left with me.  It ran as follows: 

Beloved,—­

I call you by this name as I have always called you through many cycles of time,—­it should sound upon your ears as familiarly as a note of music struck in response to another similar note in far distance.  You are not satisfied with the proofs given you by your own inner consciousness, which testify to the unalterable fact that you and I are, and must be, as one,—­that we have played with fate against each other, and sometimes striven to escape from each other, all in vain;—­it is not enough for you to know (as you do know) that the moment our eyes met our spirits rushed together in a sudden ecstasy which, had we dared to yield to it, would have outleaped convention and made of us no more than two flames in one fire!  If you are honest with yourself as I am honest with myself, you will admit that this is so,—­that the emotion which overwhelmed us was reasonless, formless and wholly beyond all analysis, yet more insistent than any other force having claim on our lives.  But it is not sufficient for you to realise this,—­or to trace through every step of the journey you have made, the gradual leading of your soul to mine,—­from that last night you passed in your own home, when every fibre of your being grew warm with the prescience of coming joy, to this present moment, even through dreams of infinite benediction in which I shared—­no!—­it is not sufficient for you!—­ you must ’know’—­you must learn—­you must probe into deeper mysteries, and study and suffer to the last!  Well, if it must be so, it must,—­and I shall rely on the eternal fitness of things to save you from your own possible rashness and bring you back to me,—­for