THE GREAT SECRET A TALE OF TO-MORROW BY HUME NISBET Author of "Bail Up," "The Savage Queen," " The Queen's Desire," "A BushgirVs Romance,'" Etc. Etc. SECOND EDITION LONDON F. V WHITE & CO. 14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND IV. C. 1896 DEDICATION TO ALL THOSE WHO, NOT QUITE SATISFIED WITH TO-DAY, MAY BE SEEKING AFTER A HAPPIER TO-MORROW, THE AUTHOR BEGS TO JDeDicate THIS WORK ——— CONTENTS CHAP. FACE I. The Embarkation, I II. The Vague Horror, 10 III. The Ocean Liner, 19 IV. Doctor Fernandez, 29 V. The Explosion, . 38 VI.— In the Hold, 49 VII. —A Gathering in the Dark, 58 VIII. The Anarchists, . 67 IX. Adela's Dream, . 75 X. The Wreck, 85 XI. Ashore, 95 XII. On the Sterile Cliff, . 101 XIII. In the Cavern, . in XIV. Hesperia speaks, . 120 XV. Flotsam, 129 XVI. The Gardf.n of Hesperides. 138 XVII. The City of Peace, 145 —— CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XVIII. —Nature relapsing, .... 154 " " XIX. The George Washington comes, . 163 XX. The Marriage of Philip and Adela, . 172 XXL—Traitors at Work, . .181 XXII. The Morning Coffee, . 190 XXIII. —A Gathering of the Gods, . .199 XXIV.—The Dead Calm, . .205 XXV.—The Tempest, ..... 214 XXVI. Hesperia discourses, . 223 XXVII.—A Strange Honeymoon, . 233 XXVIII. In the Captain's Gig, . 245 XXIX.—The Comprado Idyl, .... 254 XXX. Dr Fernandez pays one Debt, . 263 XXXI. Anatole and Eugene find Happiness . 270 XXXII.—From Night to Day, . 279 PREFACE. A Preface is an explanation or an apology from the Author to the Reader. In the present work the Author finds it difficult to write this Preface, for he cannot explain, and he does not care to apologise, honestly and sincerely as he desires to give no offence. If he might make use of a some- what hackneyed phrase, he would like to say that he was impressed to write what is here printed ; in fact, that he had no rest, night X PREFACE. nor day, until he accomplished his task. Yet it was a work over which he hesitated long and doubtfully before beginning, for, although intensely in- terested in the subject, he would have liked if he could have deferred it until a more convenient season. But with that inward or outward urging, he was forced to give way at last and lend his pen, in spite of his early training, prejudices, and later- gained practical materialism, with the dread of incurring ridicule or giving offence, protesting all the while at this strange amble of his Pegasus. Now, however, that the labour is over, he trusts that the result may interest some who may be curious about such occult matters, comfort others who may not be quite satisfied with what they PREFACE. XI do know at present, and exonerate the Author from all blame. He has done what he could to lift a small corner of the heavy veil which hangs between to-day and to-morrow, and now begs to leave this Great Secret to the thinking minds of THE READER. 1895. a THE GREAT SECRET. CHAPTER I. THE EMBARKATION. Philip Mortlake stood near the gangway of the Rock- hampton, and watched with languid attention the passengers who were to be his companions for the next six weeks. He had come early on board, and alone— weary and world-worn man, the wrong side of forty, disappointed with life, disillusioned, prematurely grey, with what might have been ties and fetters of affection snapped and withered. He was leaving England, hope- less and indifferent, and going where or to what he neither knew nor cared. Philip Mortlake was in a very bad way, and likely to be worse if something did not come to give him the rousing up which was required in his case. He was troubled with a disease which is considerably on the increase at the close of this busy century, a trouble not unlike and yet different from ennui, because it proceeds from opposite causes, a longing for our class, a weari- ness which is all-devouring, a melancholy and apathy which cannot be lifted. 2 THE GREAT SECRET. The victim to ennui has been born aimless, and surfeited himself by indulgences ; but the victim to this trouble is the active worker who has over-exerted himself, the passionate lover who has been wantonly maltreated in the court of love, and who at last breaks down, in spite of his frantic efforts to act the part of a man. Philip Mortlake, after years of battling with Destiny, had been struck down, and, like the wounded animal, all that he knew yet of his wounds was the desire for solitude. His doctors had advised him to go for a long voyage, not by himself, but where there was good company, people who did not know about him or his peculiar reasons for leaving England. The condolences of friends were poison to his mind. A man may be comforted by friendship if death has snatched all that he loves from him, but not in such a case as Philip's. He had loved, wooed and married a woman who gave him her heart in return, then, after a period of trust and happiness, she had changed towards him ; instead of trust she had plagued him almost to the point of madness with vile suspicions, evil and groundless charges, until gradu- ally, without reason or provocation on his part, her love and faith had become the direst hatred. She had grown to be his most bitter enemy, who would pause at nothing to encompass his ruin and destruction. Had they been lovers only they might have parted, and the hatred on one side and the passionate gnawing misery on the other might have been fought down in the course of time. But they were married, and could not be liberated from the yoke, except at the loss of their reputation. Philip Mortlake loved his wife, or would have loved her if she had allowed him to do so. She was a virtuous ; THE EMBARKATION. 3 and religious woman—intensely religious, as far as her mistaken ideas about religion went. He was not re- ligious, but he had a certain moral dignity which made him abhor being what his hating partner so constantly charged him with. His friends told him that she was insane, and should be shut up ; that it was a monomania which he should not trouble himself about. They were friends only who could not be expected to enter into his memory of the past fond days ; they saw only an evil-minded woman trying to drag a man down to shame and perdition ; but he carried with him for ever the picture of a fresh young girl who had loved him once, but whom he had always adored ; and this was his misery and humilia- tion now, the calamity that had broken him down at last. Yes, he was now a liberated man, as far as the law could free him, and the woman could curse and revile him when she was not praying. He had humbled himself to the dust first in the futile effort to win her back; then, seeing how idle all these efforts were, he gave her what she wanted —her liberty. It was easily enough managed with a little money. The creature was bought to swear in court that she was his mistress, while he had only to remain silent under the charges of cruelty and unfaithfulness ; and she had not spared him. The papers had recounted all his dastardly acts of unmanly abuse of this pure wife ; the audience in the court hissed him when he departed, shamed, yet free the judges had said in strong terms that hanging was too mild a punishment for such an unmitigated scoundrel ; and so he had become a branded criminal, 4 THE GREAT SECRET. and his wife an universally pitied martyr, on this day when he stood alone, watching the passengers bidding their friends farewell at the dock of Tilbury. He had some friends who had known him in the past and who would have been glad enough to have wished him God-speed on his voyage, but he did not want them, and therefore had taken his passage out without letting them know his intentions. It seemed ridiculous for a man at his time of life (for he had felt very old for some years past) to let such a trifle as love trouble him so greatly, such a mere modern incident as divorce prey so much upon his mind. If he had been a young man and lived in the ro- mantic first half of the century, his trouble might have been denned as a broken-heart ; but, alas ! he was no longer young, and the doctors decided that his trouble was a complication of mental fag, rheumatic gout and a disorganised liver, therefore they ordered him first to take a course of mineral waters and afterwards a tour round the world, and doubtless they were correct in their diagnosis. He had taken their advice, as men must do when they have lost their will-grip and have become nervous and demoralised, and spent a couple of preliminary weeks at a Hydropathic in the company of other health-wrecks, who find the most absorbing topic of conversation the recounting of their different real or imaginary ail- ments. On his entrance to the establishment he was inter- viewed by a doctor attached to the place, who gave him his first little bit of amusement and so assisted in his cure, therefore he did not grudge him his fee.