Again they looked long into one another’s eyes.

“I’m game,” murmured Spinrobin almost inaudibly; “I’m game, Mr. Skale.”  But, as he said it, something in his round head turned dizzy, while his thoughts flew to Miriam and to the clergyman’s significant phrase of a few minutes ago—­“we must be careful, we must be absolutely wise.”

IV

And the preparation the clergyman insisted upon—­detailed, thorough and scrupulous—­certainly did not lessen in Spinrobin’s eyes the gravity of the approaching ordeal.  They spent two days and nights in the very precise and punctilious study, and utterance, of the Hebrew names of the “angels”—­that is, forces—­whose qualities were essential to their safety.

Also, at the same time, they fasted.

But when the time came for the formal visit to those closed rooms, of which the locked doors were like veils in a temple, Spinrobin declares it made him think of some solemn procession down ancient passageways of crypt or pyramid to the hidden places where inscrutable secrets lay.  It was certainly thrilling and impressive.  Skale went first, moving slowly with big strides, grave as death, and so profoundly convinced of the momentous nature of their errand that an air of dignity, and of dark adventure almost majestic, hung about his figure.  The long corridor, that dreary December morning, stretched into a world of shadows, and about half-way down it he halted in front of a door next but one to Spinrobin’s room and turned towards his companion.

Spinrobin, in a mood to see anything, yet striving to hide behind one of those “bushes,” as it were, kept his distance a little, but Mr. Skale took him by the arm and drew him forward to his side.  Slowly he stooped, till the great bearded lips were level with his ear, and whispered solemnly: 

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see—­and hear God.”

Then he turned the key and led the way inside.

But apparently there were double doors, for they found themselves at first in a cupboard-like space that formed a tiny vestibule to the room itself; and here there was light enough to see that the clergyman was taking from nails on the wall two long garments like surplices, colored, so far as Spinrobin could make out, a deep red and a deep violet.

“For our protection,” whispered Skale, enveloping himself in the red one, while he handed the other to his companion and helped him into it.  “Wear it closely about your body until we come out.”  And while the secretary struggled among the folds of this cassock-like garment, that was several feet too long for his diminutive stature, the clergyman added, still with a gravity and earnestness that impressed the imagination beyond all reach of the ludicrous: 

“For sound and color are intimately associated, and there are combinations of the two that can throw the spiritual body into a condition of safe receptivity, without which we should be deaf and blind even in the great Presences themselves.”