"Then take it from this also: If now you fail hardly the grave would be a refuge."
Benilo peered up at his strange counsellor.
"Man or devil,—who are you to read the depths of the soul of man?" he queried amazed, vainly endeavouring to penetrate the vizor, which shaded the harper's face.
"Perhaps neither," a voice answered which seemed to come from the remotest part of the great hall, yet it was Hezilo the harper, who spoke, "Perchance some spirit, permitted to return to earth to goad man to his final and greatest fall."
"It shall be as you say!" Benilo spoke, rousing himself. "Onward! Relentlessly! Unflinchingly!"
He staggered from the hall.
"Perhaps I too should have flagged and failed, had not one thought whispered hope to me in the long and solitary hours which fill up the interstices of time," muttered the harper, gazing after the Chamberlain's vanishing form.
The voices died to silence. The pale light of dawn peered into the deserted hall.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PHANTOM AT THE SHRINE