"You may find only thought and silence," he said, "a company of friends absorbed in meditation, but without any message from the other world; or you may hear words that burn, the voices of disembodied genius. In any case, while you are with us you will be away from the dust and traffic of the material world." Yes, she would go, she was only too glad to be allowed to be among his disciples. "I want to escape," she told him. "I am tired of my futile life--so tired." "I thought you would have joined us long ago," he said, as he took leave, "but I think I know the influence that held you back." The hot blood rushed into her face, the red fire of conscious guilt that always came at the thought of Claude Rutherford. She had never minimised her sin. It was sin to have made him essential to her happiness, to have lost interest in all the rest of her life, to have given him her heart and mind. "I think the psychological moment has come," continued Symeon's slow, grave voice, "and that you should now become one of us. You have drained the cup of this trivial life, and have found its bitterness. Our religion is our faith in the After-life. We have the faith that looks through death. The orthodox Christian talks of the life beyond; and we must give him credit for sometimes thinking of it--but does he realise it? Is it near him? Does he look through death to the Spirit-world beyond? Does he realise the After-life as Christ realised it when He talked with His disciples?" CHAPTER IX The meeting in Mr. Symeon's library lasted all through the summer afternoon, till the edge of evening. The large and gloomy room was darkened by Venetian shutters, nearly closed over open windows. There was air, and the ceaseless sound of traffic; but the summer sun was excluded, and figures were seen dimly, as if they belonged to the shadow world. Among those indistinct forms Vera recognised people she knew, people she would never have expected to find in a society of mystics: a statesman, a poet, three popular novelists, and half a dozen of the idlest women of her acquaintance, two of whom were the heroines of romantic stories, women over whose future friends watched and prophesied with the keen interest that centres in a domestic situation where catastrophe seems imminent. Vera wondered, seeing these two. Had they come, like her, for a refuge from the tragedy of life? They had not come for an escape from sin; for, if their friends were to be believed, the border line had been passed long ago.