e--I only ask, WILL you?"

His entreating and anxious tone touched me keenly; but I was amazed and
perplexed, and could not yet realize what strange thing was going to
happen to me. But whatever occurred I was resolved to give a ready
consent to his request, therefore I said firmly:

"I will do my best, I promise you. Remember that I do not know, I
cannot even guess where I am going, or what strange sensations will
overcome me; but if I am permitted to have any recollection of earth at
all, I will try to find out what you ask."

Heliobas seemed satisfied, and rising from his chair, unlocked a
heavily-bound iron safe. From this he took a glass flask of a strange,
ever-moving, glittering fluid, the same in appearance as that which
Raffaello Cellini had forbidden me to drink. He then paused and looked
searchingly at me.

"Tell me," he said in an authoritative tone, "tell me WHY you wish to
see what to mortals is unseen? What motive have you? What ulterior
plan?"

I hesitated. Then I gathered my strength together and answered
decisively:

"I desire to know why this world, this universe exists; and also wish
to prove, if possible, the truth and necessity of religion. And I think
I would give my life, if it were worth anything, to be certain of the
truth of Christianity."

Heliobas gazed in my face with a sort of half-pity, half-censure.

"You have a daring aim," he said slowly, "and you are a bold seeker.
But shame, repentance and sorrow await you where you are going, as well
as rapture and amazement. '_I_ WOULD GIVE MY LIFE IF IT WERE WORTH
ANYTHING.' That utterance has saved you--otherwise to soar into an
unexplored wilderness of spheres, weighted by your own doubts and
guided solely by your own wild desires, would be a fruitless journey."

I felt abashed as I met his steady, scrutinizing eyes.

"Surely it is well to wish to know the reason of things?" I asked, with
some timidity.

"The desire of knowledge is a great virtue, certainly," he replied; "it
is not truly felt by one in a thousand. Most persons are content to
live and die, absorbed in their own petty commonplace affairs, without
troubling themselves as to the reasons of their existence. Yet it is
almost better, like these, to wallow in blind ignorance than wantonly
to doubt the Creator because He is unseen, or to put a self-opinionated
construction on His mysteries because He chooses to veil them from our
eyes."

"I do not doubt!" I exclaimed earn