"Find the angels!" Heliobas surveyed him sadly as he spoke. "Nay!
... pray rather that they may find THEE!" He looked long and
steadfastly at Alwyn's countenance, on which there was just then
the faint glimmer of a rather mocking smile,--and as he looked,
his own face darkened suddenly into an expression of vague trouble
and uneasiness--and a strange quiver passed visibly through him
from head to foot.

"You are bold, Mr. Alwyn,"--he said at last, moving a little away
from his guest and speaking with some apparent effort--"bold to a
fault, but at the same time you are ignorant of all that lies
behind the veil of the Unseen. I should be much to blame if I sent
you hence to-night, utterly unguided--utterly uninstructed. I
myself must think--and pray--before I venture to incur so terrible
a responsibility. To-morrow perhaps--to-night, no! I cannot--
moreover I will not!"

Alwyn flushed hotly with anger. "Trickster!" he thought. "He feels
he has no power over me, and he fears to run the risk of failure!"

"Did I hear you aright?" he said aloud in cold determined accents.
"You cannot? you will not? ... By Heaven!"--and his voice rose, "I
say you SHALL!" As he uttered these words a rush of indescribable
sensations overcame him,--he seemed all at once invested with some
mysterious, invincible, supreme authority,--he felt twice a man
and more than half a god, and moved by an irresistible impulse
which he could neither explain nor control, he made two or three
hasty steps forward,--when Heliobas, swiftly retreating, waved him
off with an eloquent gesture of mingled appeal and menace.