His voice thrilled with passion,--his aspect was so solemn, and earnest, and imposing that Alwyn, awed and startled, remained for a moment mute--then, lifting his head proudly, answered-- "Yes, I DARE! If I am immortal I will test my immortality! I will face God and find these angels you talk about! What shall prevent me?" "Find the angels!" Heliobas surveyed him sadly as he spoke. "Nay! ... pray rather that they may find THEE!" He looked long and steadfastly at Alwyn's countenance, on which there was just then the faint glimmer of a rather mocking smile,--and as he looked, his own face darkened suddenly into an expression of vague trouble and uneasiness--and a strange quiver passed visibly through him from head to foot. "You are bold, Mr. Alwyn,"--he said at last, moving a little away from his guest and speaking with some apparent effort--"bold to a fault, but at the same time you are ignorant of all that lies behind the veil of the Unseen. I should be much to blame if I sent you hence to-night, utterly unguided--utterly uninstructed. I myself must think--and pray--before I venture to incur so terrible a responsibility. To-morrow perhaps--to-night, no! I cannot--moreover I will not!" Alwyn flushed hotly with anger. "Trickster!" he thought. "He feels he has no power over me, and he fears to run the risk of failure!" "Did I hear you aright?" he said aloud in cold determined accents. "You cannot? you will not? ... By Heaven!"--and his voice rose, "I say you SHALL!" As he uttered these words a rush of indescribable sensations overcame him,--he seemed all at once invested with some mysterious, invincible, supreme authority,--he felt twice a man and more than half a god, and moved by an irresistible impulse which he could neither explain nor control, he made two or three hasty steps forward,--when Heliobas, swiftly retreating, waved him off with an eloquent gesture of mingled appeal and menace. "Back! back!" he cried warningly. "If you come one inch nearer to me I cannot answer for your safety--back, I say! Good God! you do not know your OWN power!" Alwyn scarcely heeded him,--some fatal attraction drew him on, and he still advanced, when all suddenly he paused, trembling violently. His nerves began to throb acutely,--the blood in his veins was like fire,--there was a curious strangling tightness in his throat that interrupted and oppressed his breathing,--he stared straight before him with large, luminous, impassioned eyes. What--WHAT was that dazzling something in the air that flashed and whirled and shone like glittering wheels of golden flame? His lips parted ... he stretched out his hands in the uncertain manner of a blind man feeling his way ... "Oh God! ... God!" ... he muttered as though stricken by some sudden amazement,--then, with a smothered, gasping cry, he staggered and fell heavily forward on the floor--insensible!