"Cross and Star!" he mused, as he noticed this brilliant and singular decoration, "an emblem of the fraternity, I suppose, meaning ... what? Salvation and Immortality? Alas, they are poor, witless builders on shifting sand if they place any hope or reliance on those two empty words, signifying nothing! Do they, can they honestly believe in God, I wonder? or are they only acting the usual worn-out comedy of a feigned faith?"
And he eyed them somewhat wistfully as their white apparelled figures went by--ten had already left the chapel. Two more passed, then other two, and last of all came one alone--one who walked slowly, with a dreamy, meditative air, as though he were deeply absorbed in thought. The light from the open door streamed fully upon him as he advanced--it was the monk who had recited the Seven Glorias. The stranger no sooner beheld him than he instantly stepped forward and touched him on the arm.
"Pardon!" he said hastily in English, "I think I am not mistaken-- your name is, or used to be Heliobas?"
The monk bent his handsome head in a slight yet graceful salutation, and smiled.
"I have not changed it," he replied, "I am Heliobas still." And his keen, steadfast, blue eyes rested half inquiringly, half compassionately, on the dark, weary, troubled face of his questioner who, avoiding his direct gaze, continued: "I should like to speak to you in private. Can I do so now--to- night--at once?"
"By all means!" assented the monk, showing no surprise at the request. "Follow me to the library, we shall be quite alone there."
He led the way immediately out of the chapel, and through a stone- paved vestibule, where they were met by the two brethren who had first received and entertained the unknown guest, and who, not finding him in the refectory where they had left him, were now coming in search of him. On seeing in whose company he was, however, they drew aside with a deep and reverential obeisance to the personage called Heliobas--he, silently acknowledging it, passed on, closely attended by the stranger, till he reached a spacious, well-lighted apartment, the walls of which were entirely lined with books. Here, entering and closing the door, he turned and confronted his visitor--his tall, imposing figure in its trailing white garments calling to mind the picture of some saint or evangelist--and with grave yet kindly courtesy, said: "Now, my friend, I am at your disposal! In what way can Heliobas, who is dead to the world, serve one for whom surely as yet the world is everything?"