“What you want to learn,—­and what every beginner in the study of psychic law generally wants to learn first of all, is how to obtain purely personal satisfaction and advantage,”—­he said—­“You want to know three things—­the secret of life—­the secret of youth—­the secret of love!  Thousands of philosophers and students have entered upon the same research, and one perhaps out of the thousand has succeeded where all the rest have failed.  The story of Faust is perpetually a thing of interest, because it treats of these secrets, which according to the legend are only discoverable through the aid of the devil.  We know that there is no devil, and that everything is divinely ordained by a Divine Intelligence, so that in the deepest researches which we are permitted to make there is nothing to fear—­ but Ourselves!  Failure is always brought about by the students, not by the study in which they are engaged,—­the reason of this being that when they know a little, they think they know all,—­with the result that they become intellectually arrogant, an attitude that instantly nullifies all previous attainment.  The secret of life is a comparatively easy matter to understand—­the secret of youth a little more difficult—­the secret of love the most difficult of all, because out of love is generated both the perpetuity of life and of youth.  Now your object in coming here is, down at the root of it, absolutely personal—­I will not say selfish, because that sounds hard—­and I will give you credit for the true womanly feeling you have, that being conscious in your own soul of Rafel Santoris as your superior and master as well as your lover, you wish to be worthy of him, if only in the steadfastness and heroism of your character.  I will grant you all that.  I will also grant that it is perfectly natural, and therefore right, that you should wish to retain youth and beauty and health for his sake,—­and I would even urge that this desire should be solely for his sake!  But just now you are not quite sure whether it is for his sake,—­you wish to hold, for yourself, the secret of life and the power of life’s continuance—­the secret of youth and the power of youth’s continuance,—­and you most certainly wish to have for yourself, as well as for Rafel, the secret of love and the power of love’s continuance.  None of these secrets can be disclosed to worldlings—­ by which term I mean those who allow themselves to be moved from their determination, and distracted by a thousand ephemeral matters.  I do not say you are such an one,—­but you, like all who live in the world, have your friends and acquaintances—­people who are ready to laugh at you and make mock of your highest aims—­people whose delight would be to block the way to your progress—­and the question with me is—­Are you strong enough to ensure the mental strain which will be put upon you by ignorant and vulgar opposition and even positive derision?  You may be,—­you are self-willed enough, though not always rightly