"Shall I not see you again?" I asked, with a little tremor in my voice.
"Yes--you will see me again if you pass your ordeal successfully"--he
answered--"Not if you fail."
"What will happen if I fail?"
"Nothing but the most ordinary circumstance,"--he answered--"You will
leave this place in perfect safety and return to your home and your
usual avocations,--you will live as most women live, perhaps on a
slightly higher grade of thought and action--and in time you will come
to look upon your visit to the House of Aselzion as the merest wilful
escapade of folly! The world and its conventions will hold you--"
"Never!" I exclaimed, passionately--"Aselzion, I will not fail!"
He looked earnestly in my face--then laid his hands on my head in a
mute blessing, and signed to me to pass into my turret room. I obeyed.
He closed the door upon me instantly--I heard the key turn in the
lock--and then--just the faint echo of his retreating footsteps down
the winding stair. My room was illumined by a very faint light, the
source of which I knew not. Everything was as I had left it before I
had been summoned to the mysterious Chapel of the Cross and Star,--and
I looked about me, tranquillised by the peace and simplicity of my
surroundings. I did not feel disposed to sleep, and I resolved to write
down from memory all that Aselzion had told me while it was fresh in my
mind. The white veil I had been given still clung about me,--I now took
it off and carefully folded it ready for further use if needed. Sitting
down at the little table, I took out pen, ink and paper,--but somehow I
could not fix my attention on what I intended to do. The silence around
me was more intense than ever, and though my window was open I could
not even hear the murmur of the sea. I listened--hardly drawing
breath--there was not a sound. The extraordinary silence deepened--and
with it came a sense of cold; I seemed to be removed into a place
apart, where no human touch, no human voice could reach me,--and I felt
as I had never felt in all my life before, that I was indeed utterly
alone.