Page:John Uri Lloyd - Etidorhpa.djvu/88

 "To one person only, as I have said, and you have promised, you must not speak—your wife."

I bowed my head, and a flood of sorrowful reflections swept over me. Of all the world the one whom I longed to meet, to clasp in my arms, to counsel in my distress, was the wife of my bosom, and I begged him to withdraw his cruel injunction.

"You should have thought of her before; now it is too late. To permit you to meet, and speak with her would be dangerous; she might pierce your disguise. Of all others there is no fear."

"Must I go with you into an unknown future without a farewell kiss from my little child or from my babe scarce three months old?"

"It has been so ordained."

I threw myself on the floor and moaned. "This is too hard, too hard for human heart to bear. Life has no charm to a man who is thrust from all he holds most dear, home, friends, family."

"The men who relinquish such pleasures and such comforts are those who do the greatest good to humanity," said the youth. "The multitude exist to propagate the race, as animal progenitors of the multitudes that are to follow, and the exceptional philanthropist is he who denies himself material bliss, and punishes himself in order to work out a problem such as it has been ordained that you are to solve. Do not argue further—the line is marked, and you must walk direct."

Into the blaze of the old fireplace of that log house, for, although it was autumn, the night was chilly, he then cast his black robe and false face, and, as they turned to ashes, the last evidences of the vivid acts through which I had passed, were destroyed. As I lay moaning in my utter misery, I tried to reason with myself that what I experienced was all a hallucination. I dozed, and awoke startled, half conscious only, as one in a nightmare; I said to myself, "A dream! a dream!" and slept again.