I looked at him questioningly.

“One may wish and will many things,”—­I said—­“But the result is not always successful.”

“Is that your experience?” he asked, bending his keen eyes full upon me—­“You know, if you are true to yourself, that no power can resist the insistence of a strong Will brought steadily to bear on any intention.  If the effort fails, it is only because the Will has hesitated.  What have you made of some of your past lives—­you and your lover both—­through hesitation at a supreme moment!”

I looked at him appealingly.

“If we made mistakes, could we altogether help it?” I asked—­“Does it not seem that we tried for the best?”

He smiled slightly.

“No, it does not seem so to me,”—­he replied—­“The mainspring of your various previous existences,—­the law of attraction drawing you together was, and is, Love.  This you fought against as though it were a crime, and in many cases you obeyed the temporary conventionalities of man rather than the unchanging ordinance of God.  And now—­divided as you have been—­lost as you have been in endless whirlpools of infinitude, you are brought together again—­ and though your lover has ceased to question, you have not ceased to doubt!”

“I do not doubt!” I exclaimed, suddenly, and with passion—­“I love him with all my soul!—­I will never lose him again!”

Aselzion looked at me questioningly.

“How do you know you have not lost him already?” he said.

At this a sudden wave of despair swept over me—­a chill sense of emptiness and desolation.  Could it be possible that my own rashness and selfishness had again separated me from my beloved?—­for so I now called him in my heart—­had I by some foolish, distrustful thought estranged him once more from my soul?  The rising tears choked me—­I rose from my seat, hardly knowing what I did, and went to the window for air—­Aselzion followed me and laid his hand gently on my shoulder.

“It is not so difficult to win love as to keep it!”—­he said—­ “Misunderstanding, and want of quick sympathy, end in heart-break and separation.  And this is far worse than what mortals call death.”

The burning tears fell slowly from my eyes—­every word seemed to pierce my heart—­I looked yearningly out on the sea, rippling under the moon.  I thought of the day, barely a week ago, when Rafel stood beside me, his hand clasping mine,—­such a little division of time seemed to have elapsed since we were together, and yet how long!  At last I spoke—­

“I would rather die, if death were possible, than lose his love”—­I said—­“And where there is no love, surely there must be death?”

Aselzion sighed.

“Poor child!  Now you understand why the lonely Soul hurls itself wildly from one phase of existence to another till it finds its true mate!”—­he answered—­“You say truly that where there is no love there is no real life.  It is merely a semi-conscious existence.  But you have no cause to grieve—­not now,—­not if you are firm and faithful.  Rafel Santoris is safe and well—­and his soul is so much with you—­you are so constantly in his thoughts, that it is as if he were himself here—­see!”