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."
"Never!" declared Alwyn, with a passionate gesture--"I should know her among a thousand!"
For one instant Heliobas bent upon him a sudden, searching, almost pitiful glance, then withdrawing his gaze he said gently: "Well, well! let us hope for the best--God's ways are inscrutable --and you tell me that now--now after your strange so-called 'vision'--you believe in God?"
"I did say so, certainly..." and Alwyn's face flushed a little.. "but..."
"Ah! ... you hesitate! there is a 'but' in the case!" and Heliobas turned upon him with a grand reproach in his brilliant eyes.. "Already stepping backward on the road! ... already rushing once again into the darkness! ..." He paused, then laying one hand on the young man's shoulder, continued in mild yet impressive accents: "My friend, remember that the doubter and opposer of God, is also the doubter and opposer of his own well-being. Let this unnatural and useless combat of Human Reason, against Divine Instinct cease within you--you, who as a poet are bound to EQUALIZE your nature that it may the more harmoniously fulfil its high commission. You know what one of your modern writers says of life? ... that it is a 'Dream in which we clutch at shadows as though they were substances, and sleep deepest when fancying ourselves most awake.'[Footnote: Carlyle's Sartor Resartus.] Believe me, YOU have slept long enough--it is time you awoke to the full realization of your destinies."