concluded, he waited as before to see the monks pass out, and was
smitten with a sudden surprise, compunction, and regret, when
Heliobas, who walked last as usual, paused where he stood, and
confronted him, saying:

"I will bid you farewell here, my friend! ... I have many things
to do this evening, and it is best I should see you no more before
your departure."

"Why?" asked Alwyn astonished--"I had hoped for another
conversation with you."

"To what purpose!" inquired Heliobas mildly. "That I should assert
... and you deny ... facts that God Himself will prove in His own
way and at His own appointed time? Nay, we should do no good by
further arguments."

"But," stammered Alwyn hastily, flushing hotly as he spoke, "you
give me no chance to thank you ... to express my gratitude."

"Gratitude?" questioned Heliobas almost mournfully, with a tinge
of reproach in his soft, mellow voice. "Are you grateful for
being, as you think, deluded by a trance? ... cheated, as it were,
into a sort of semi-belief in the life to come by means of
mesmerism? Your first request to me, I know, was that you might be
deceived by my influence into a state of imaginary happiness,--and
now you fancy your last night's experience was merely the result
of that pre-eminently foolish desire. You are wrong! ... and, as
matters stand, no thanks are needed. If I had indeed mesmerized or
hypnotized you, I might perhaps have deserved some reward for the