“But suppose”—­suggested Heliobas quietly, “suppose she were to find an even more complete happiness in making you happy?”

Alwyn shook his head.  “My friend do not let us talk of it!”—­he answered—­“No joy can be more complete than the joy of Heaven,—­ and that in its full blessedness is hers.”

“That in its full blessedness is not hers,”—­declared Heliobas with emphasis—­“And, moreover, it can never be hers, while you are still an exile and a wanderer!  Friend Poet, do you think that even Heaven is wholly happy to one who loves, and whose Beloved is absent?”

A tremor shook Alwyn’s nerves,—­his eyes glowed as though the inward fire of his soul had lightened them, but his face grew very pale.

“No more of this, for God’s sake!” he said passionately.  “I must not dream of it,—­I dare not!  I become the slave of my own imagined rapture,—­the coward who falls conquered and trembling before his own desire of delight!  Rather let me strive to be glad that she, my angel-love, is so far removed from my unworthiness,—­ let her, if she be near me now, read my thoughts, and see in them how dear, how sacred is her fair and glorious memory,—­how I would rather endure an eternity of anguish, than make her sad for one brief hour of mortal-counted time!”

He was greatly moved,—­his voice trembled with the fervor of its own music, and Heliobas looked at him with a grave and very tender smile.

“Enough!”—­he said gently—­“I will speak no further on this subject, which I see affects you deeply.  Nevertheless, I would have you remember how, when the Master whom we serve passed through His Agony at Gethsemane, and with all the knowledge of His own power and glory strong upon Him, still in His vast self-abnegation said, ‘Not My will, but Thine be done!’ that then ‘there appeared an Angel unto Him from heaven strengthening Him!’ Think of this,—­for every incident in that Divine-Human Life is a hint for ours,—­and often it chances that when we reject happiness for the sake of goodness, happiness is suddenly bestowed upon us.  God’s miracles are endless,—­God’s blessings exhaustless, . . and the marvels of this wondrous Universe are as nothing, compared to the working of His Sovereign Will for good on the lives of those who serve Him faithfully.”

Alwyn flashed upon him a quick, half-questioning glance, but was silent,—­and they walked on together for some minutes without exchanging a word.  A few people passed and repassed them,—­some little children were playing hide-and-seek behind the trunks of the largest trees,—­the air was fresh and invigorating, and the incessant roar of busy traffic outside the Park palings offered a perpetual noisy reminder of the great world that surged around them,—­the world of petty aims and transitory pleasures, with which they, filled full of the knowledge of higher and eternal things, had so little in common save sympathy,—­sympathy for the wilful wrong-doing of man, and pity for his self-imposed blindness.  Presently Heliobas spoke again in his customary light and cheerful tone: