Alwyn started up, seized the written sheets, and scanned them
eagerly.

"It is my handwriting!" he muttered in a tone of stupefied
amazement.

"Of course! Whose handwriting should it be?" returned Heliobas,
watching him with scientifically keen, yet kindly interest.

"Then it IS true!" he exclaimed. "True--by the sweetness of her
eyes,--true, by the love-lit radiance of her smile!--true, O thou
God whom I dared to doubt! true by the marvels of Thy matchless,
wisdom!"

And with this strange outburst, he began to read in feverish haste
what he had written. His breath came and went quickly,--his cheeks
flushed, his eyes dilated,--line after line he perused with
apparent wonder and rapture,--when suddenly interrupting himself
he raised his head and recited in a half whisper:

"With thundering notes of song sublime I cast my sins away from
me--On stairs of sound I mount--I climb! The angels wait and pray
for me!

"I heard that stanza somewhere when I was a boy ... why do I think
of it now? SHE has waited,--so she said,--these many thousand
days!"

He paused meditatively,--and then resumed his reading, Heliobas
touched his arm.