Heliobas smiled.  “Not afraid!  And you ran out of the chapel just now as if you were pursued by a fiend!  You must know that the only woman I ever tried my greatest experiment upon is my sister Zara.  She was trained and prepared for it in the most careful manner; and it succeeded.  Now”—­and Heliobas looked half-sad, half-triumphant—­“she has passed beyond my power; she is dominated by one greater than I. But she cannot use her force for others; she can only employ it to defend herself.  Therefore, I am willing to try you if you indeed desire it—­to see if the same thing will occur to you as to Zara; and I firmly believe it will.”

A slight tremor came over me; but I said with an attempt at indifference: 

“You mean that I shall be dominated also by some great force or influence?”

“I think so,” replied Heliobas musingly.  “Your nature is more prone to love than to command.  Try and follow me in the explanation I am going to give you.  Do you know some lines by Shelley that run—­

  “’Nothing in the world is single,
    All things by a law divine
    In one another’s being mingle—­
    Why not I with thine?’”

“Yes,” I said.  “I know the lines well.  I used to think them very sentimental and pretty.”

“They contain,” said Heliobas, “the germ of a great truth, as many of the most fanciful verses of the poets do.  As the ’image of a voice’ mentioned in the Book of Job hinted at the telephone, and as Shakespeare’s ‘girdle round the earth’ foretold the electric telegraph, so the utterances of the inspired starvelings of the world, known as poets, suggest many more wonders of the universe than may be at first apparent.  Poets must always be prophets, or their calling is in vain.  Put this standard of judgment to the verse-writers of the day, and where would they be?  The English Laureate is no seer:  he is a mere relater of pretty stories.  Algernon Charles Swinburne has more fire in him, and more wealth of expression, but he does not prophesy; he has a clever way of combining Biblical similes with Provengal passion—­et voila tout!  The prophets are always poor—­the sackcloth and ashes of the world are their portion; and their bodies moulder a hundred years or more in the grave before the world finds out what they meant by their ravings.  But apropos of these lines of Shelley.  He speaks of the duality of existence.  ‘Nothing in the world is single.’  He might have gone further, and said nothing in the universe is single.  Cold and heat, storm and sunshine, good and evil, joy and sorrow—­all go in pairs.  This double life extends to all the spheres and above the spheres.  Do you understand?”

“I understand what you say,” I said slowly; “but I cannot see your meaning as applied to myself or yourself.”

“I will teach you in a few words,” went on Heliobas.  “You believe in the soul?”

“Yes.”