The last words were uttered slowly and impressively, and Alwyn's countenance brightened with a sudden irresistible rapture.
"That would be impossible!" he said, but his voice trembled, and there was more interrogativeness than assertion in his tone.
"Impossible in most cases,--yes"--agreed Heliobas--"but in your specially chosen and privileged estate, I cannot positively say that such a thing might not be."
For one moment a strange, eager brilliancy shone in Alwyn's eyes, --the next, he set his lips hard, and made a firm gesture of denial.
"Do not tempt me, good Heliobas," he said, with a faint smile-- "Or, rather, do not let me tempt myself! I bear in constant mind what she, my Edris, told me when she left me,--that we should not meet again till after death, unless the longing of my love COMPELLED. Now, if it be true, as I have often thought, that I COULD compel,--by what right dare I use such power, if power I have upon her? She loves me,--I love her,--and by the force of love, such love as ours, . . who knows!--I might perchance persuade her to adopt a while this mean, uneasy vesture of mere mortal life,--and the very innate perception that I MIGHT do so, is the sharpest trial I have to endure. Because if I would thoroughly conquer myself, I must resist this feeling;--nay, I WILL resist it,--for let it cost me what it may, I have sworn that the selfishness of my own personal desire shall never cross or cloud the radiance of her perfect happiness!"
"But suppose"--suggested Heliobas quietly, "suppose she were to find an even more complete happiness in making YOU happy?"
Alwyn shook his head. "My friend do not let us talk of it!"--he answered--"No joy can be more complete than the joy of Heaven,-- and that in its full blessedness is hers."
"That in its full blessedness is NOT hers,"--declared Heliobas with emphasis--"And, moreover, it can never be hers, while YOU are still an exile and a wanderer! Friend Poet, do you think that even Heaven is wholly happy to one who loves, and whose Beloved is absent?"
A tremor shook Alwyn's nerves,--his eyes glowed as though the inward fire of his soul had lightened them, but his face grew very pale.
"No more of this, for God's sake!" he said passionately. "I must not dream of it,--I dare not! I become the slave of my own imagined rapture,--the coward who falls conquered and trembling before his own desire of delight! Rather let me strive to be glad that she, my angel-love, is so far removed from my unworthiness,-- let her, if she be near me now, read my thoughts, and see in them how dear, how sacred is her fair and glorious memory,--how I would rather endure an eternity of anguish, than make her sad for one brief hour of mortal-counted time!"