"Darkness!" he went on in low accents that thrilled with the memory of a past feat--"dense, horrible, frightful darkness!--darkness that palpitated heavily with the labored motion of unseen things!--darkness that clung and closed about me in masses of clammy, tangible thickness,--its advancing and resistless weight rolled over me like a huge waveless ocean--and, absorbed within it, I was drawn down--down--down toward some hidden, impalpable but All Supreme Agony, the dull unceasing throbs of which I felt, yet could not name. 'O GOD!' I cried aloud, abandoning myself to wild despair, 'O GOD! WHERE ARE THOU?' Then I heard a great rushing sound as of a strong wind beaten through with wings, and a Voice, grand and sweet as a golden trumpet blown suddenly in the silence of night, answered: 'HERE! ... AND EVERYWHERE!' With that, a slanting stream of opaline radiance cleft the gloom with the sweep of a sword-blade, and I was caught up quickly ... I know not how ... for I saw nothing!" Again he pushed and looked wistfully at Heliobas, who in turn regarded him with gentle steadfastness. "It was wonderful--terrible!" ... he continued slowly--"yet beautiful! ... that Invisible Strength that rescued, surrounded, and uplifted me; and--" here he hesitated, and a faint flush colored his cheeks and stole up to the roots of his clustering hair--"dream or no dream, I feel I cannot now altogether reject the idea of an existing Divinity. In brief ... I believe in God!" "Why?" asked Heliobas quietly. Alwyn met his gaze frankly and with a soft brightening of his handsome features. "I cannot give you any logical reasons," he said. "Moreover, logical reasoning would not now affect me in a matter which seems to me more full of conviction than any logic. I believe, ... simply because I believe!" Heliobas smiled--a very warm and kindly smile--but said nothing, and Alwyn resumed his narrative.