“He is still far away!” said Heliobas at last, sighing as he spoke.  “So far away that my mind misgives me. ...  Alas, Hilarion! how limited is our knowledge! ... even with all the spiritual aids of spiritual life how little can be accomplished!  We learn one thing, and another presents itself—­we conquer one difficulty, and another instantly springs up to obstruct our path.  Now if I had only had the innate perception required to foresee the possible flight of this released Immortal. creature, might I not have saved it from some incalculable misery and suffering?”

“I think not,” answered in rather musing accents the monk called Hilarion—­“I think not.  Such protection can never be exercised by mere human intelligence, if this soul is to be saved or shielded in its invisible journeying it will be by some means that not all the marvels of our science can calculate.  You say he was without faith?”

“Entirely”

“What was his leading principle?”

“A desire for what he called Truth,” replied Heliobas.

“He, like many others of his class, never took the trouble to consider very deeply the inner meaning of Pilate’s famous question, ‘What is Truth?’ We know what it is, as generally accepted—­a few so called facts which in a thousand years will all be contradicted, mixed up with a few finite opinions propounded by unstable minded men.  In brief, Truth, according to the world, is simply whatever the world is pleased to consider as Truth for the time being.  ’Tis a somewhat slight thing to stake one’s immortal destinies upon!”

Hilarion raised one of Alwyn’s cold, pulseless hands—­it was stiff, and white as marble.

“I suppose,” he said, “there is no doubt of his returning hither?”

“None whatever,” answered Heliobas decisively.  “His life on earth is assured for many years yet,—­inasmuch as his penance is not finished, his recompense not won.  Thus far my knowledge of his fate is certain.”

“Then you will bring him back to-day?” pursued Hilarion.

“Bring him back?  I?  I cannot!” said Heliobas, with a touch of sad humility in his tone.  “And for this very reason I feared to send him hence,—­and would not have done so,—­not without preparation at any rate,—­could I have had my way.  His departure was more strange than any I have ever known—­moreover, it was his own doing, not mine.  I had positively refused to exert my influence upon him, because I felt he was not in my sphere, and that therefore neither I nor any of those higher intelligences with which I am in communication could control or guide his wanderings.  He, however, was as positively determined that I should exert it—­ and to this end he suddenly concentrated all the pent up fire of his nature in one rapid effort of Will, and advanced upon me. ...  I warned him, but in vain! quick as lightning flash meets lightning flash, the two invisible Immortal Forces within us