“Why, most assuredly we are!” returned Heliobas, heartily pressing the proffered palm.  “You had your doubts of me and you have them still; but what of that!  I take no offence at unbelief.  I pity those who suffer from its destroying influence too profoundly to find room in my heart for anger.  Moreover, I never try to convert anybody. ... it is so much more satisfactory when sceptics convert themselves, as you are unconsciously doing!  Come, ... shall we join the brethren?”

Over Alwyn’s face flitted a transient shade of uneasiness and hauteur.

“I would rather they knew nothing about all this,” he began.

“Make your mind quite easy on that score,” rejoined Heliobas.  “None of my companions here are aware of your recent departure, except my very old personal friend Hilarion, who, with myself, saw your body while in its state of temporary death.  But he is one of those remarkably rare wise men who know when it is best to be silent; then again, he is ignorant as to the results of your soul-transmigration, and will, as far as I am concerned, remain in ignorance.  Your confidence I assure you is perfectly safe with me —­as safe as though it had been received under the sacred seal of confession.”

With this understanding Alwyn seemed relieved and satisfied, and thereupon they left the apartment together.

CHAPTER VI.

“Nourhalma” And the original Esdras.

Later on in the afternoon of the same day, when the sun, poised above the western mountain-range, appeared to be lazily looking about him with a drowsy, golden smile of farewell before descending to his rest, Alwyn was once more alone in the library.  Twilight shadows were already gathering in the corners of the long, low room, but he had moved the writing-table to the window, in order to enjoy the magnificence of the surrounding scenery, and sat where the light fell full upon his face as he leaned back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, in an attitude of pleased, half-meditative indolence.  He had just finished reading from beginning to end the poem he had composed in his trance ... there was not a line in it he could have wished altered,—­not a word that would have been better omitted,—­the only thing it lacked was a title, and this was the question on which he now pondered.  The subject of the poem itself was not new to him—­it was a story he had known from boyhood, ... an old Eastern love-legend, fantastically beautiful as many such legends are, full of grace and passionate fervor—­a theme fitted for the nightingale-utterance of a singer like the Persian Hafiz—­though even Hafiz would have found it difficult to match the exquisitely choice language and delicately ringing rhythm in which this quaint idyll of long past ages was now most perfectly set like a jewel in fine gold.  Alwyn himself entirely realized the splendid literary value of the