My whole being thrilled with a sense of keen rapture as he thus prayed for me,—­I could have knelt to him in reverence but that I instinctively knew he would not wish this act of homage.  I felt that it was best to keep silence, and I obeyed his guiding touch as, still holding my hand, he led me into a vaulted stone passage and up a long winding stair at the head of which he paused, and taking a key from his girdle, unlocked a small door.

“There is your room, my child,”—­he said, with a grave kindliness which moved me strangely—­“Farewell!  The future is with yourself alone.”

I clung to his hand for an instant.

“Shall I not see you again?” I asked, with a little tremor in my voice.

“Yes—­you will see me again if you pass your ordeal successfully”—­ he answered—­“Not if you fail.”

“What will happen if I fail?”

“Nothing but the most ordinary circumstance,”—­he answered—­“You will leave this place in perfect safety and return to your home and your usual avocations,—­you will live as most women live, perhaps on a slightly higher grade of thought and action—­and in time you will come to look upon your visit to the House of Aselzion as the merest wilful escapade of folly!  The world and its conventions will hold you—­”

“Never!” I exclaimed, passionately—­“Aselzion, I will not fail!”

He looked earnestly in my face—­then laid his hands on my head in a mute blessing, and signed to me to pass into my turret room.  I obeyed.  He closed the door upon me instantly—­I heard the key turn in the lock—­and then—­just the faint echo of his retreating footsteps down the winding stair.  My room was illumined by a very faint light, the source of which I knew not.  Everything was as I had left it before I had been summoned to the mysterious Chapel of the Cross and Star,—­and I looked about me, tranquillised by the peace and simplicity of my surroundings.  I did not feel disposed to sleep, and I resolved to write down from memory all that Aselzion had told me while it was fresh in my mind.  The white veil I had been given still clung about me,—­I now took it off and carefully folded it ready for further use if needed.  Sitting down at the little table, I took out pen, ink and paper,—­but somehow I could not fix my attention on what I intended to do.  The silence around me was more intense than ever, and though my window was open I could not even hear the murmur of the sea.  I listened—­hardly drawing breath—­there was not a sound.  The extraordinary silence deepened—­and with it came a sense of cold; I seemed to be removed into a place apart, where no human touch, no human voice could reach me,—­and I felt as I had never felt in all my life before, that I was indeed utterly alone.

XVI

SHADOW AND SOUND