“Good-night!” I answered.  “And remember Prince Ivan asked for your pardon.”

“I remember!” she replied softly.  “I have already pardoned him, and I will pray for him.”  And a sort of radiant pity and forbearance illumined her lovely features, as we parted for the night.  So might an angel look on some repentant sinner pleading for Heaven’s forgiveness.

I lay awake for some time that night, endeavouring to follow out the track of thought I had entered upon in my conversation with Zara.  With such electricity as Heliobas practised, once admitting that human electric force existed, a fact which no reasoning person could deny, all things were possible.  Even a knowledge of superhuman events might be attained, if there were anything in the universe that was superhuman; and surely it would be arrogant and ignorant to refuse to contemplate such a probability.  At one time people mocked at the wild idea that a message could flash in a moment of time from one side of the Atlantic to the other by means of a cable laid under the sea; now that it is an established fact, the world has grown accustomed to it, and has ceased to regard it as a wonder.  Granting human electricity to exist, why should not a communication be established, like a sort of spiritual Atlantic cable, between man and the beings of other spheres and other solar systems?  The more I reflected on the subject the more lost I became in daring speculations concerning that other world, to which I was soon to be lifted.  Then in a sort of half-doze, I fancied I saw an interminable glittering chain of vivid light composed of circles that were all looped one in another, which seemed to sweep round the realms of space and to tie up the sun, moon, and stars like flowers in a ribbon of fire.  After much anxious and humble research, I found myself to be one of the smallest links in this great chain.  I do not know whether I was grateful or afraid at this discovery, for sleep put an end to my drowsy fancies, and dropped a dark curtain over my waking dreams.

CHAPTER X.

My strange departure.

The next morning brought me two letters; one from Mrs. Everard, telling me that she and the Colonel had resolved on coming to Paris.

“All the nice people are going away from here,” she wrote.  “Madame Didier and her husband have started for Naples; and, to crown our lonesomeness, Raffaello Cellini packed up all his traps, and left us yesterday morning en route for Rome.  The weather continues to be delicious; but as you seem to be getting on so well in Paris, in spite of the cold there, we have made up our minds to join you, the more especially as I want to renovate my wardrobe.  We shall go straight to the Grand Hotel; and I am writing to Mrs. Challoner by this post, asking her to get us rooms.  We are so glad you are feeling nearly recovered—­of course, you must not leave your physician till you are quite ready.  At any rate, we shall not arrive till the end of next week.”