“As regards myself personally, I must say that a man without faith in anything but himself, has always seemed to me exactly in keeping with the description given of an atheist by Lady Ashburton to Carlyle,—­namely ’a person who robs himself, not only of clothes, but of flesh as well, and walks about the world in his bones.’  And, oddly enough in spite of all the controversies going on about Christianity, I have always really worshipped Christ in my heart of hearts, . . and yet..  I can’t go to church!  I seem to lose the idea of Him altogether there:  . . but".. and his frank face took upon itself a dreamy light of deep feeling—­“there are times when, walking alone in the fields, or through a very quiet grove of trees, or on the sea-shore, I begin to think of His majestic life and death, and the immense, unfailing sympathy He showed for every sort of human suffering, and then I can really believe in him as Divine friend, comrade, Teacher, and King, and I am scarcely able to decide which is the deepest emotion in my mind toward Him—­love, or reverence.”

He paused,—­Alwyn’s eyes rested upon him with a quick, comprehensive friendliness,—­in one exchange of looks the two men became mutually aware of the strong undercurrents of thought that lay beneath each other’s individual surface history, and that perhaps had never been so clearly recognized before,—­and a kind of swift, speechless, satisfactory agreement between their two separate natures seemed suddenly drawn up, ratified, and sealed in a glance.

“I have often thought,” continued Villiers more lightly, and smiling as he spoke—­“that we are all angels or devils,—­angels in our best moments, devils in our worst.  If we could only keep the best moments always uppermost!  ‘Ah, poor deluded human nature!’ as old Moxall says,—­while in the same breath he contradicts himself by asserting that human Reason is the only infallible means of ascertaining anything!  How it can be ‘deluded’ and ‘infallible’ at the same time, I can’t quite understand!  But, Alwyn, you haven’t told me how you like the ‘get-up’ of your book?”

And he handed the volume in question to its author, who turned it over with the most curious air of careless recognition—­in his fancy he again saw Zabastes writing each line of it down to Sah-luma’s dictation!

“It’s very well printed”—­he said at last,—­“and very tastefully bound.  You have superintended the work con amore, Villiers, . . and I am as obliged to you as friendship will let me be.  You know what that means?”

“It means no obligation at all”—­declared Villiers gayly.. “because friends who are the least worthy the name take delight in furthering each other’s interests and have no need to be thanked for doing what is particularly agreeable to them.  You really like the appearance of it, then?  But you’ve got the sixth edition.  This is the first.”

And he took up from a side-table a quaint small quarto, bound is a very superb imitation of old embossed leather, which Alwyn, beholding, was at once struck by the resemblance it bore to the elaborate designs that had adorned the covers of the papyrus volumes possessed by his Shadow-Self, Sahluma!