Page:The Inner House.djvu/129

Rh "You have made me more happy than words can tell. Oh, you are mine—you are mine, and I am yours!"

"As for the Secret," he went on, "it belongs, if it is to be used at all, to all mankind. Why did the College of Physicians guard it in their own jealous keeping, save to make themselves into a mysterious and separate Caste? Must men always appoint sacred guardians of so-called mysteries which belong to all? My dear, since the Great Discovery, Man has been sinking lower and lower. He can go very little lower now. You have been rescued from the appalling fate which Grout calls the Triumph of Science. Yes—yes—" he repeated, as if uncertain, "the Secret belongs to all or none. Let all have it and work out their destiny in freedom, or let none have it, and so let us go back to the old times, when such great things were done against the fearful odds of so short and uncertain a span. Which would be the better?"

"Only come with us, my lover. Oh, can a simple woman make you happy? Come with us; but let our friends know—else they will not come with us—that wherever we go, we have the Secret."

"It belongs to all," he repeated. "Come with me, then, Mildred, to the House of Life. You shall be the first to whom the Secret shall be revealed. And you, if you please, shall tell it to all our friends. It is the Secret, and that alone, which keeps up the Authority of the College. Come. It is dark; but I have a key to the North Postern. Come with me. In the beginning of this new Life which lies before us, I will, if you wish, give the Secret to all who share it. Come, my Love, my Pride."

He led her by the hand quickly down the Picture Gallery and out into the Garden.

I looked round. The silly folk in the Museum were going on with their masquerade—laughing, singing,