indifference.

"That some higher influence is working for your rescue and
safety," replied Heliobas. "What influence I dare not presume to
imagine, but--there are always angels near!"

"Angels!" Alwyn laughed aloud. "How many more fairy tales are you
going to weave for me out of your fertile Oriental imagination?
Angels! ... See here, my good Heliobas, I am perfectly willing to
grant that you may be a very clever man with an odd prejudice in
favor of Christianity,--but I must request that you will not talk
to me of angels and spirits or any such nonsense, as if I were a
child waiting to be amused, instead of a full-grown man with ..."

"With so full-grown an intellect that it has out-grown God!"
finished Heliobas serenely. "Quite so! Yet angels, after all, are
only immortal Souls such as yours or mine when set free of their
earthly tenements. For instance, when I look at you thus," and he
raised his eyes with a lustrous, piercing glance--"I see the
proud, strong, and rebellious Angel in you far more distinctly
than your outward shape of man ... and you ... when you look at
me--"

He broke off, for Alwyn at that moment sprang from his chair, and,
staring fixedly at him, uttered a quick, fierce exclamation.

"Ah! I know you now!" he cried in sudden and extraordinary
excitement--"I know you well! We have met before!--Why,--after all
that has passed,--do we meet again?"