The Secret Power by Marie Corelli (the reading strategies book txt) 📕

“Not for her!” Morgana replied—“She has set her soul to try if God will help her to restore him,—she will surround him with the constant influence of a perfectly devoted love. Dare we say there shall be no healing power in such an influence?—we who know so much of which the world is ignorant!”

He stroked her shining hair with a careful tenderness as one might stroke the soft plumage of a bird.

“And you?” he said, in a low tone—“What of you?”

She raised her eyes to his. A light of heaven’s own radiance shone in those blue orbs—an angelic peace beyond all expression.

“What should there be of me except the dream come true?” she responded, smiling—“You know my plans,—you also know my destiny, for I have told you everything! You will be the controller of all my wealth, entrusted to carry out all my wishes, till it is time either for you to come where I am, or for me to return hither. We never know how or when that may be. But it has all seemed plain sailing for me since I saw the city called ‘Brazen’ but which WE know is Golden!—and when I found that you belonged to it, and were only stationed here for a short time, I knew I could give you my entire confidence. It is not as if we were of the passing world or its ways—we are of the New Race, and time does not count with us.”

“Quite true,” he said—“But for these persons in whom you are interested, time is still considered—and for the girl it will be long!”

“Not with such love as hers!” replied Morgana. “Each moment, each hour will be filled with hope and prayer and constant vigilance. Love makes all things easy! It is useless to contend with a fate which both the man and woman have made for themselves. He is—I should say he was a scientist, who discovered the means of annihilating any section of humanity at his own wish and will—he played with the fires of God and brought annihilation on himself. MY discovery—the force that moves my air-ship—the force that is the vital element of all who live in the Golden City—is the same as his!—but I use it for health and movement, progress and power— not for the destruction of any living soul! By one single false step he has caused the death and misery of hundreds of helpless human creatures—and this terror has recoiled on his own head. The girl Manella has no evil thought in her—she simply loves!—her love is ill placed, but she also has brought her own destiny on herself. You have worked—and so have I—WITH the universal force, not as the world does, AGAINST it,—and we have made OURSELVES what we are and what we SHALL BE. There is no other way either forward or backward,- you know there is not!” Here she rose from her knees and confronted him, a light aerial creature of glowing radiance and elfin loveliness-“And you must fulfil her wish—and mine!”

He rose also and stood erect, a noble figure of a man with a dignified beauty of mien and feature that seemed to belong to the classic age rather than ours.

“So be it!” he said—“I will carry out all your commands to the letter! May I just say that your generosity to Giulio Rivardi seems almost unnecessary? To endow him with a fortune for life is surely too indulgent! Does he merit such bounty at your hands?”

She smiled.

“Dear Father Aloysius, Giulio has lost his heart to me!” she said— “Or what he calls his heart! He should have some recompense for the loss! He wants to restore his old Roman villa—and when I am gone he will have nothing to distract him from this artistic work,—I leave him the means to do it! I hope he will marry—it is the best thing for him!”

She turned to go.

“And your own Palazzo d’Oro?—”

“Will become the abode of self-sacrificing love,” she replied—“It could not be put to better use! It was a fancy of mine;—I love it and its gardens—and I should have tried to live there had I not found out the secret of a large and longer life!” She paused—then added—“To-morrow morning you will come?”

He bent his head.

“To-morrow!”

With a salute of mingled reverence and affection she left him. He watched her go,—and hearing the bell begin to chime in the chapel for vespers, he lifted his eyes for a moment in silent prayer. A light flashed downward, playing on his hands like a golden ripple,— and he stood quietly expectant and listening. A Voice floated along the Ray—“You are doing well and rightly!” it said—“You will release her now from the strain of seeming to be what she is not. She is of the New Race, and her spirit is advanced too far to endure the grossness and materialism of the Old generation. She deserves all she has studied and worked for,—lasting life, lasting beauty, lasting love! Nothing must hinder her now!”

“Nothing shall!” he answered.

The Ray lessened in brilliancy and gradually diminished till it entirely vanished,—and Don Aloysius, with the rapt expression of a saint and visionary, entered the chapel where his brethren were already assembled, and chanted with them—

The next morning, all radiant with sunshine, saw the strangest of nuptial ceremonies,—one that surely had seldom, if ever, been witnessed before in all the strange happenings of human chance. Manella Soriso, pale as a white arum lily, her rich dark hair adorned with a single spray of orange-blossom gathered from the garden, stood trembling beside the bed where lay stretched out the immobile form of the once active, world-defiant Roger Seaton. His eyes, wide open and staring into vacancy, were, like dull pebbles, fixed in his head,—his face was set and rigid as a mask of clay— only his regular breathing gave evidence of life. Manella’s pitiful gazing on this ruin of the man to whom she had devoted her heart and soul, her tender sorrow, her yearning beauty, might have almost moved a stone image to a thrill of response,—but not a flicker of expression appeared on the frozen features of that terrible fallen pillar of human self-sufficiency. Standing beside the bed with Manella was Marco Ardini, intensely watchful and eager to note even a quiver of the flesh or the tremor of a muscle,—and near him was Lady Kingswood, terrified yet enthralled by the scene, and anxious on behalf of Morgana, who looked statuesque and pensive like a small attendant angel close to Don Aloysius. He, in his priestly robes, read the marriage service with soft and impressive intonation, himself speaking the responses for the bride-groom,—and taking Manella’s hand he placed it on Seaton’s, clasping the two together, the one so yielding and warm, the other stiff as marble, and setting the golden marriage ring which Morgana had given, on the bride’s finger. As he made the sign of the cross and uttered the final blessing, Manella sank on her knees and covered her face. There followed a tense silence—Aloysius laid his hand on her bent head—

“God help and bless you!” he said, solemnly—“Only the Divine Power can give you strength to bear the burden you have taken on yourself!”

But at his words she sprang up, her eyes glowing with a great joy.

“It is no burden!” she said—“I have prayed to be his slave—and now I am his wife! That is more than I ever dared to dream of!—for now I have the right to care for him, to work for him, and no one can separate me from him! What happiness for me! But I will not take a mean advantage of this—ah, no!—no good, Father! Listen!—I swear before you and the holy Cross you wear, that if he recovers he shall never know!—I will leave him at once without a word—he shall think I am a servant in his employ—or rather he shall not think at all about me for I will go where he can never find me, and he will be as free as ever he was! Yes, truly!—by the blessed Madonna I swear it! I will kill myself rather than let him know!”

She looked regally beautiful, her face flushed with the pride and love of her soul,—and in her newly gained privilege as a wife she bent down and kissed the pallid face that lay like the face of a corpse on the pillow before her.

“He is a poor wounded child just now!” she murmured, tenderly—“But I will care for him in his weakness and sorrow! The doctor will tell me what to do—and it shall all be done! I will neglect nothing—as for money, I have none—but I will work—”

Morgana put an arm about her.

“Dear, do not think of that!” she said—“For the present you will stay here—I am going on a journey very soon, and you and Lady Kingswood will take care of my house till I return. Be quite satisfied!—You will have all you want for him and for yourself. Professor Ardini will talk to you now and tell you everything—come away—”

But Manella was gazing intently at the figure on the bed—she saw its grey lips move. With startling suddenness a harsh voice smote the air—

“There shall be no more wars! There can be none! My Great Secret! I am Master of the World!”

She shrank and shivered, and a faint sobbing cry escaped her.

“Come!” said Morgana again,—and gently led her away. The spray of orange-blossom fell from her hair as she moved, and Don Aloyslus, stooping, picked it up. Marco Ardini saw his action.

“You will keep that as a souvenir of this strange marriage?” he said.

“No,—” and Don Aloysius touched the white fragrant flower with his crucifix—“I will lay it as a votive offering on the altar of the Eternal Virgin!”

About a fortnight later life at the Palazzo d’Oro had settled into organised lines of method and routine. Professor Ardini had selected two competent men attendants, skilled in surgery and medicine to watch Seaton’s case with all the care trained nursing could give, and himself had undertaken to visit the patient regularly and report his condition. Seaton’s marriage to Manella Soriso had been briefly announced in the European papers and cabled to the American Press, Senator Gwent being one of the first who saw it thus chronicled, much to his amazement.

“He has actually become sane at last!” he soliloquised, “And beauty has conquered science! I gave the girl good advice—I told her to marry him if she could,—and she’s done it! I wonder how they escaped that earthquake? Perhaps that brought him to his senses! Well, well! I daresay I shall be seeing them soon over here—I suppose they are spending their honeymoon with Morgana. Curious affair! I’d like to know the ins and outs of it!”

“Have you seen that Roger Seaton is married?” was the question asked of him by every one he knew, especially