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Arrived at Cragness, Neria was at once admitted to the library, and found
its master seated at the open window, looking listlessly out over the water. He
rose as his guest entered, mutely greeted her, and then feebly sank again into
the great arm-chair. The years had wrought upon John Gillies in a fashion
characteristic of himself. His tall figure was not bowed, but seemed to have
dried away to a skeleton, thinly covered with indurated flesh and ashen skin;
his grey hair was no thinner than it had been twenty years before; his dry lips
closed as firmly, his shaggy brows drew together as keenly, but in the eyes
themselves there was a change. Those grey eyes no longer looked on men and
things with the shrewd suspicion, the crafty watchfulness, of their youth, but
had taken a dreary, introspective softness into their depths—a pain, a doubt, a
longing, inexpressibly mournful to Neria, who looked now at her old friend with
a new appreciation of the silent story of his life.

Almost without a word, Mr. Gillies unlocked the organ and motioned the
young girl to seat herself at it. As silently, she complied; and presently stole
out upon the hushed air, not the pain and sorrow of the human heart aching in
the musician's breast, but a tender melody, rising and deepening to a noble anthem—
tones of lofty hope, of aspiration and prophecy—a strain that bore the
listener from the grief of earth to the content of heaven; that, in language high
above speech, told of the grand unities of creation, of the eternal harmony in
which all discords shall yet be resolved, and the incompleteness and vagueness
of life shall be satisfied, by the Master's hand striking the grand chord, embodying
in its fulness the key-note of every man's soul.

The solemn joy died away, and Neria sat, with bowed head and dreamy
eyes, her fingers idly wandering over the keys, and drawing from them faint
whispers, dim echoes —hints of the murmuring sea that swept up beneath the
open window, of the summer that glowed in sky and shore.

A thin, hard hand, laid lightly upon her arm, roused her, with a start.

“I have something to say to you, Miss Neria,” said John Gillies, and walked
stiffly back to his seat in the window, where Neria followed him, and silently
sat.

But the recluse seemed to relapse into his usual reticence. Leaning an elbow
on the table and his chin upon his palm, he sat looking far away to the horizon
line, where, like the wings of a great bird, the sails of a distant ship glanced
and wavered in the sunlight.

“You are not quite well yet, Mr. Gillies,” said Neria, at length, fancying
herself forgotten.

The dreamy eyes came back from the white-winged ship now sinking below
the horizon, and fixed upon her face.

“Not well? I can hardly say that; but I am going away, Miss Neria.”

“Away from Cragness?”

“Away from everything. I don't say, going to die, because I don't know
what that means; but I am soon to make the great change, and I have an unfulfilled
trust holding me back. This trust I wish to make over to you, if you
will have it; but first I must tell you what it has done for me. Then you shall
choose.”

Again he paused, and in his fixed eyes dim shadows of the past slowly gathered
and darkened. When he spoke again, it was in a weary and hollow voice.

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“I made the grand mistake of my life in coming here. I did not know myself
as I now do, or I never should have accepted Reginald Vaughn's bequest.
My nature, unlike that of other men, had but one passion—one point open to
romance or idealism—and through this one narrow channel poured all the impulses
of my life, leaving the rest to be guided by reason, method, habit.

“The combination, if unusual, was effective. The vehemence of my passion
for music was toned and restrained by the habits of my daily life, and when,
after the dry routine of labor, I could feel myself free to indulge this passion,
it was to me as love and fame, as home and wife and children are to other men.
It was my solace, my rest and recreation.

“I came here. All the fashion of my life was changed. I no longer mingled
with men, I no longer filled a place in the affairs of the world; the bonds that
had for years held me to a positive duty, a defined position, were snapped at a
blow. I had no longer hours, requirements, or responsibilities, save such as
were self-imposed. My whole life was unhinged.

“Add to this a secret, a solemn mystery placed in my hands by a dying man,
who bade me live here in this very room, where every handsbreadth of surface,
every book, every mote floating in the air, the sea booming against its walls—
yes, even my own organ—all know this secret, all taunt me with it, all whisper
it forever in an unknown tongue, which I have wasted my life to learn, and yet
do not know.”

He looked slowly about the room, with a wild, hungry light in his sunken
eyes, and Neria's heart thrilled with a strange fear. Gillies glanced sharply at
her, and said, quietly,

“It would not be strange if my brain were unsettled, but it is not—as yet.
Whether death or madness come first, Fate only knows.”

“Fate!” said Neria, softly.

“Yes; or God, if you prefer. It is the same power by a different name.
Do not talk of that.

“My nature is one slow to take impressions. For years the change wrought
by this new life was almost imperceptible; as imperceptible and as unpausing
as the hand of time. I gave myself up to music; I collected the works of the
great masters in the art; I dreamed over them, and tried to find in myself the
power to rival them; I brought from Germany this organ, the chef-d'œuvre of
its artist; for he was a man who expressed Art in form, as the musician does
in sound. I revelled in dreams and visions like those that break the hearts of
poets, who can find in words no language to embody them. I lived a life of passion
and excess with my beautiful Art, and she turned upon me, as these idols
will, and slew me.”

He rose and paced the dusky room in strong emotion, and presently sank
back into his chair, pale and exhausted.

“I blaspheme,” said he, in a choked voice. “It was not Art that slew me—
it was I, who knew not that man is not as a God, and cannot live above the
earth without sooner or later feeling earth's vengeance.

“Years of this life wrought their work upon me at last. My great passion
had taken possession of my entire existence, forcing to unnatural development
the impulses severely restrained by the rigor of my former life—awakening capacities
and wants unknown to my earlier years. I was roused, restless, and
unsatisfied. Then came the vengeance of earth—came in the old familiar form
of—woman.”

The bitter contortion of his mouth was not a smile, but matched well with
the cruel self-contempt of his sudden glance.

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“I know what you mean,” said Neria, softly. “Do not speak of it, if it
pains you.”

“You know? Well, it spares me some pain, and so let it pass. Since then,
my life has been the broken reed that has at last pierced to the heart. Aimless
and discontented, it has no longer the pure purpose, the earnest faith, which
Art demands of her favored lovers. The inspiration of those first years never
comes now; I no longer create—I can only copy; and the masters whom I
hoped to emulate no longer whisper their secrets to my heart. I profaned the
pure worship of the divinity by conjoining a false idol with it, and now I am
cast out, broken, forsaken, unworthy even to lie at the steps of the altar.”

The wild gleam had returned to his eyes, and again he paced up and down
the dim chamber, pausing in its midst, at last, to say:

“And this secret of the old man's: I have never found it out, and it haunts
me day and night. You see now what it has done for me. Will you have it?”

Neria turned pale, and looked vaguely about the room, as she answered, reluctantly,

“I am afraid of secrets.”

“But I cannot carry this one to haunt me in another world, as it has in this,”
said Gillies, nervously. “Besides, who knows whether that old man who gave
it me may not demand a reckoning when we meet there beyond, and then it will
be too late. And who is there but you?”

“Mr. Vaughn is far wiser than I—” began Neria, but Gillies impatiently
moved his hand.

“It is to be told to none of the name or race of Vaughn,” said he. “And
if you will not have it, I must take it with me. But I hoped to leave it this side
the grave.”

Moved by his voice and manner, Neria took counsel with herself for a few
moments, and then said,

“Can you trust me so far as to tell the secret, and then allow me choice in
the matter of accepting the charge it contains? You cannot doubt that, at all
events, I shall keep it inviolable!”

Gillies considered.

“Yes,” said he, slowly, “I will trust you. Wait.”

From a locked drawer of his desk he drew a sealed package, and, after attentively
examining it, placed it in Neria's hands.

“There,” said he, “is the letter the old man left for me, and it contains all
the information I am able to give you. I have not advanced one step beyond.
Keep the package carefully, and, when I am dead, read and act upon it as you
think fit. You will then be mistress of Cragness, and may you escape the curse
it has brought with it to me. Now go, for my gloomy mood is at hand, and you
cannot help me.”

Neria took the letter, and, as she touched it, a light shudder ran through her
frame.

“After reading, I am free to accept or refuse the trust?” asked she, again.

“Yes; but, if you refuse, choose another agent, and give this house and the
secret to him. It is your responsibility now—I have done with it.”

“At all events, the trust is inviolable,” said Neria, solemnly; but Gillies,
who had thrown himself into his chair, with his face to the window, made no reply;
and Neria, unwilling to disturb his reverie, silently left the room.

In the passage she met old Lazarus Graves, and, with a smile and kind word,
passing on, presently found herself breathing more freely in the open air.

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“How unfortunate,” said she to herself, “am I, who dislike secrets so much,
and have two of them given to me in one day.”