CHAPTER III.

Departure.

Heliobas was silent—­he seemed engaged in deep and anxious thought,—­and he kept his steadfast eyes fixed on Alwyn’s countenance, as though he sought there the clew to some difficult problem.

“What do you know of the Nunc Dimittis?” he asked at last, with a half-smile.  “You might as well say Pater NOSTER,—­both canticle and prayer would be equally unmeaning to you!  For poet as you are,—­or let me say as you were,—­inasmuch as no atheist was ever a poet at the same time—­”

“You are wrong,” interrupted Alwyn quickly.  “Shelley was an atheist.”

“Shelley, my good friend, was not an atheist [Footnote:  See the last two verses of Adonais].  He strove to be one,—­nay, he made pretence to be one,—­but throughout his poems we hear the voice of his inner and better self appealing to that Divinity and Eternity which, in spite of the material part of him, he instinctively felt existent in his own being.  I repeat, poet as your were, and poet as you will be again when the clouds on your mind are cleared,—­ you present the strange, but not uncommon spectacle of an Immortal Spirit fighting to disprove its own Immortality.  In a word, you will not believe in the Soul.”

“I cannot!” said Alwyn, with a hopeless gesture.

“Why?”

“Science can give us no positive proof of its existence; it cannot be defined.”

“What do you mean by Science?” demanded Heliobas.  “The foot of the mountain, at which men now stand, grovelling and uncertain how to climb? or the glittering summit itself which touches God’s throne?”

Alwyn made no answer.

“Tell me,” pursued Heliobas, “how do you define the vital principle?  What mysterious agency sets the heart beating and the blood flowing?  By the small porter’s lantern of to-day’s so-called Science, will you fling a light on the dark riddle of an apparently purposeless Universe, and explain to me why we live at all?”

“Evolution,” responded Alwyn shortly, “and Necessity.”

“Evolution from what?” persisted Heliobas.  “From one atom?  What atom?  And from whence came the atom?  And why the necessity of any atom?”

“The human brain reels at such questions!” said Alwyn, vexedly and with impatience.  “I cannot answer them—­no one can!”

“No one?” Heliobas smiled very tranquilly.  “Do not be too sure of that!  And why should the human brain ’reel’?—­the sagacious, calculating, clear human brain that never gets tired, or puzzled, or perplexed!—­that settles everything in the most practical and common-sense manner, and disposes of God altogether as an extraneous sort of bargain not wanted in the general economy of our little solar system!  Aye, the human brain is a wonderful thing!—­and yet by a sharp, well-directed knock with this”—­and he took up from the table a paper-knife with a massive, silver-mounted, weighty horn-handle—­“I could deaden it in such wise that the soul could no more hold any communication with it, and it would lie an inert mass in the cranium, of no more use to its owner than a paralyzed limb.”