ost in thought, they went together to the sergeant's house.

"And so the boy believes that he is an angel exiled from heaven!"
thought the tall stranger. "Which of us all has a right to undeceive
him? Not I--I, who am so often lifted by some magic spell so far above
the earth; I who am dedicate to God; I who am a mystery to myself. Have
I not already seen the fairest of the angels dwelling in this mire? Is
this child more or less crazed than I am? Has he taken a bolder step
in the way of faith? He believes, and his belief no doubt will lead him
into some path of light like that in which I walk. But though he is
as beautiful as an angel, is he not too feeble to stand fast in such a
struggle?"

Abashed by the presence of his companion, whose voice of thunder
expressed to him his own thoughts, as lightning expresses the will of
Heaven, the boy was satisfied to gaze at the stars with a lover's eyes.
Overwhelmed by a luxury of sentiment, which weighed on his heart, he
stood there timid and weak--a midge in the sunbeams. Sigier's discourse
had proved to them the mysteries of the spiritual world; the tall, old
man was to invest them with glory; the lad felt them in himself,
though he could in no way express them. The three represented in living
embodiment Science, Poetry, and Feeling.

On going into the house, the Exile shut himself into his room, lighted
the inspiring lamp, and gave himself over to the ruthless demon of Work,
seeking words of the silence and ideas of the night. Godefroid sat down
in his window sill, by turns gazing at the moon reflected in the water,
and studying the mysteries of the sky. Lost in one of the trances that
were frequent to him, he traveled from sphere to sphere, from vision to
vision, listening for obscure rustlings and the voices of angels, and
believing that he heard them; seeing, or fancying that he saw, a divine
radiance in which he lost himself; striving to attain the far-away goal,
the source of all light, the fount of all harmony.

Presently the vast clamor of Paris, brought down on the current, was
hushed; lights were extinguished one by one in the houses; silence
spread over all; and the huge city slept like a tired giant.

Midnight struck. The least noise, the fall of a leaf, or the flight of
a jackdaw changing its perching-place among the pinnacles of Notre-Dame,
would have been enough to bring the stranger's mind to earth again, to
have made the youth drop from the celestial