“You know this book?” he asked.

Alwyn glanced at it.  “The Bible!  Of course!” he replied indifferently.  “Everybody knows it!”

“Pardon!” and Heliobas smiled.  “It would be more correct to say nobody knows it.  To read is not always to understand.  There are meanings and mysteries in it which have never yet been penetrated, and which only the highest and most spiritually gifted intellects can ever hope to unravel.  Now” ... and he turned over the pages carefully till he came to the one he sought, “I think there is something here that will interest you—­listen!” and he read aloud, “’The Angel Uriel came unto me and said:  Go into a field of flowers where no house is builded and eat only the flowers of the field—­taste no flesh, drink no wine, but eat flowers only.  And pray unto the Highest continually, and then will I come and talk to thee.  So I went my way into the field which is called Ardath, ... ’”

“The very place!” exclaimed Alwyn, eagerly bending over the sacred book; then drawing back with a gesture of disappointment he added, “But you are reading from Esdras, the Apocrypha! an utterly unreliable source of information!”

“On the contrary, as reliable as any history ever written,” rejoined Heliobas calmly.  “Study it for yourself, ... you will see that the prophet was at that time resident in Babylon; the field he mentions was near the city ...”

“Yes—­was!” interrupted Alwyn incredulously.

“Was and is,” continued Heliobas.  “No earthquake has crumbled it, no sea has invaded it, and no house has been ‘builded’ thereon.  It is, as it was then, a waste field, lying about four miles west of the Babylonian ruins, and there is nothing whatever to hinder you from journeying thither when you please.”

Alwyn’s expression as he heard this was one of stupefied amazement.  Part of his so-called “dream” had already proved itself true—­a “field of Ardath” actually existed!

“You are certain of what you say?” he demanded.

“Positively certain!” returned Heliobas.

There was a silence, during which a little tinkling bell resounded in the outer corridor, followed by the tread of sandaled feet on the stone pavement.  Heliobas closed the Bible and returned it to its shelf.

“That was the dinner-bell,” he announced cheerfully.  “Will you accompany me to the refectory, Mr. Alwyn? ... we can talk further of this matter afterwards.”  Alwyn roused himself from the fit of abstraction into which he had fallen, and gathering together the loose sheets of his so strangely written manuscript, he arranged them all in an orderly heap without speaking.  Then he looked up and met the earnest eyes of Heliobas with an expression of settled resolve in his own.

“I shall set out for Babylon to-morrow,” he said quietly.  “As well go there as anywhere! ... and on the result of my journey I shall stake my future!  In the mean time—­” He hesitated, then suddenly extending his hand with a frank grace that became him well,” In spite of my brusquerie last night, I trust we are friends?”