"He may. He will--he must, ... if he has gone where I would have
him go."

"A poet, is he not!" queried Hilarion softly, bending down to look
more attentively at the beautiful Antinous-like face colorless and
cold as sculptured alabaster.

"An uncrowned monarch of a world of song!" responded Heliobas,
with a tender inflection in his rich voice. "A genius such as the
earth sees but once in a century! But he has been smitten with the
disease of unbelief and deprived of hope,--and where there is no
hope there is no lasting accomplishment." He paused, and with a
touch as gentle as a woman's, rearranged the cushions under
Alwyn's heavy head, and laid his hand in grave benediction on the
broad white brow shaded by its clustering waves of dark hair. "May
the Infinite Love bring him out of danger into peace and safety!"
he said solemnly,--then turning away, he took his companion by the
arm, and they both left the room, closing the door quietly behind
them. The chapel bell went on tolling slowly, slowly, sending
muffled echoes through the fog for some minutes--then it ceased,
and profound stillness reigned.

The monastery was always a very silent habitation,--situated as it
was on so lofty and barren a crag, it was far beyond the singing-
reach of the smaller sweet-throated birds--now and then an eagle
clove the mist with a whirr of wings and a discordant scream on
his way toward some distant mountain eyrie--but no other sound of
awakening life broke the hush of the slowly widening dawn. An hour
passed--and Alwyn still remained in the same position,--as
pallidly quiescent as a corpse stretched out for burial. By and by