At the door the pretty Greek boy handed me a huge basket of the loveliest flowers.

“The last from the conservatory,” said Heliobas.  “I shall need no more of these luxuries.”

As I entered the carriage he placed the flowers beside me, and again took my hand.

“Good-bye, my child!” he said, in earnest and kindly tones.  “I have your address, and will write you all my movements.  In any trouble, small or great, of your own, send to me for advice without hesitation.  I can tell you already that I foresee the time when you will resign altogether the precarious and unsatisfactory life of a mere professional musician.  You think no other career would be possible to you?  Well, you will see!  A few months will decide all.  Good-bye again; God bless you!”

The carriage moved off, and Heliobas stood on the steps of his mansion watching it out of sight.  To the last I saw his stately figure erect in the light of the winter sunshine—­a figure destined from henceforth to occupy a prominent position in my life and memory.  The regret I felt at parting from him was greatly mitigated by the assurance he gave me of our future meeting, a promise which has since been fulfilled, and is likely soon to be fulfilled again.  That I have such a friend is an advantageous circumstance for me, for through his guidance I am able to judge accurately of many things occurring in the course of the daily life around me—­things which, seemingly trivial, are the hints of serious results to come, which, I am thus permitted in part to foresee.  There is a drawback, of course, and the one bitter drop in the cup of knowledge is, that the more I progress under the tuition of Heliobas, the less am I deceived by graceful appearances.  I perceive with almost cruel suddenness the true characters of all those whom I meet.  No smile of lip or eye can delude me into accepting mere surface-matter for real depth, and it is intensely painful for me to be forced to behold hypocrisy in the expression of the apparently devout—­sensuality in the face of some radiantly beautiful and popular woman—­vice under the mask of virtue—­self-interest in the guise of friendship, and spite and malice springing up like a poisonous undergrowth beneath the words of elegant flattery or dainty compliment.  I often wish I could throw a rose-coloured mist of illusion over all these things and still more earnestly do I wish I could in a single instance find myself mistaken.  But alas! the fatal finger of the electric instinct within me points out unerringly the flaw in every human diamond, and writes “Sham” across many a cunningly contrived imitation of intelligence and goodness.  Still, the grief I feel at this is counterbalanced in part by the joy with which I quickly recognize real virtue, real nobility, real love; and when these attributes flash out upon me from the faces of human beings, my own soul warms, and I know I have seen a vision as of angels.  The capability of Heliobas to foretell future events proved itself in his knowledge of the fate of the famous English hero, Gordon, long before that brave soldier met his doom.  At the time the English Government sent him out on his last fatal mission, a letter from Heliobas to me contained the following passage: