"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more misery if you listen to it."

     "Not at all--it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"

     He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.

     "Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim--a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine."