I started and looked up—­a shadowy figure stood beside me—­that of a woman in dark trailing garments, whose face shone with a pale beauty in the dim light surrounding us both.

“So you have found your way here at last!” she said, gently—­“Here, where all things end, and nothing begins!”

I rose to my feet and confronted her.

“Where all things end!” I repeated—­“Surely where life exists there is no end?”

She gave me a fleeting smile.

“Life is a dream,”—­she said—­“And the things of life are dreams within the dream!  There are no realities.  You imagine truths which are deceptions.”

I looked at her in wonder and bewilderment.  She was beautiful—­and the calm sadness of her eyes expressed compassion and tenderness.

“Then—­is Creation a lie?” I asked.

She made no immediate answer, but pointed with one hand towards the dark water.  I looked, and uttered a cry of ecstasy—­there, shining in the heaving blackness like a vision from fairyland, was the ’Dream’—­glittering from stem to stern with light that sparkled like millions of diamonds!

“Your Dream of Love!” said the woman beside me—­“Behold it for the last time!”

With straining eyes and beating heart I watched—­and saw the shining vessel begin to sink slowly into the deep watery blackness—­down, down still lower, till only her masts were visible—­then something defiant and forceful sprang up within me,—­I would master this torture, I thought—­I would not yield to the agony that threatened to drive me to utter despair.

“This is a phantom of sorrow!”—­I said—­“It has no meaning!  The love that is in my heart is my own!—­it is my life, my soul, my inmost being!—­it is eternal as God Himself, and to Him I commend it!”

I spoke these words aloud, holding the book of the ‘Secret of Life’ clasped to my breast—­and raised my eyes trustfully to the dense darkness which should have been the sky.  Then I felt the woman’s hand on mine.  Her touch was warm and gentle.

“Come!” she said, softly.

And I saw a small boat slip out on the gloomy water, guided towards me by One whose face was hidden in a fold of black.  My companion drew me with her and signed to me to enter.  Something in myself, as well as in her looks, impelled me to obey, and as she stepped into the boat I followed.  We were borne along in silence for what seemed to me a long time, till suddenly I began to hear strange sounds of wailing, and shuddering cries of appeal, and our darkness was lightened by the drifting to and fro of pale forms that were luminous and human in shape though scarcely of human resemblance.

“What are these?” I whispered.

My companion took my hand and held it.

“Listen!” she answered.

And gradually, out of a clamour of weeping and complaint, I heard voices which uttered distinct things.

“I am the Phantom of Wealth”—­said one—­“For me men and nations have rushed on destruction,—­for me they have sacrificed happiness and missed the way to God!  For me innocence has been betrayed and honour murdered.  I am but a Shadow, but the world follows me as if I were Light—­I am but the gold dust of earth, and men take me for the glory of Heaven!”