Alwyn started as if he had been stung.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "If I could be certain of seeing her again!
... if ... good God! the idea seems absurd! ... if that Flower-
Crowned Wonder of my dream should actually fulfill her promise and
keep her tryst ..."

"Well!" demanded Heliobas--"If so, what then?"

"Well then I will believe in anything!" he cried--"No miracle will
seem miraculous.. no impossibility impossible!"

Heliobas sighed, and regarded him thoughtfully.

"You THINK you will believe!" he said somewhat sadly--"But doubts
such as yours are not easily dispelled. Angels have ere now
descended to men, men have neither received nor recognized them.
Angels walk by our side through crowded cities and lonely
woodlands,--they watch us when we sleep, they hear us when we
pray, ... and yet the human eye sees nothing save the material
objects within reach of its vision, and is not very sure of those,
while it can no more discern the spiritual presences than it can
without a microscope discern the lovely living creatures contained
in a drop of dew or a ray of sunshine. Our earthly sight is very
limited--it can neither perceive the infinitely little nor the
infinitely great. And it is possible,--nay, it is most probable,
that even as Peter of old denied his Divine Master, so you, if
brought face to face with the Angel of your last night's
experience, would deny and endeavor to disprove her identity."