at her soul might shine for me, as your light shines for her! The
light of my life has departed. O that the darkness were complete! I
am dead," his thoughts ran on, and when the privilege--bitter
word!--that permits me to remain here has expired, I must doubtless
return to Saturn, and there in purgatory work out my probation. But
what comfort is it that a few centuries hence I may be able to revisit
my native earth?--

The flowers will bloom in the morning light,
And the lark salute the sun,
The earth will continue to roll through space,
And I may be nearer my final grace,
But Sylvia's life-thread will be spun.

"Even Sylvia's house will be a heap of ruins, or its place will be
taken by something else. If I had Sylvia, I should care for nothing;
as I have lost her, even this sight, though sweet, must always bring
regret. I wish, at all events, I might see Sylvia, if only with these
spirit-eyes, since, as a mortal, she may never gladden my sight again."

To his surprise, he now perceived that he could see, notwithstanding
the drawn shades. Sylvia was at her writing-desk, in a light-coloured
wrapper. She sat there resting her head on her hand, looking
thoughtful but worried. Though it was so late, she had not retired.
The thrush that Ayrault had often in life admired, and that she had for
some reason brought up-stairs, was silent and asleep.

"Happy bird!" he said, "you obtain rest and forgetfulness on covering
your head; but what wing can cover my soul? I used to wish I might
flutter towards heaven on natural wings like you, little thrush. Now I
can, indeed, outfly you. But whatever I do I'm unhappy, and wherever I
go I'm in hell. What is man in his helpless, first spiritual state?
He is but a flower, and withers soon. Had I, like the bishop, been
less blind, and obeyed my conscience clear, I might have returned to my
native earth while Sylvia still sojourns here; and coming thus by
virtue of development, I should be able to commune with her.

"What is life?" he continued. "In the retrospect, nothing. It seems
to me already as but an infinitesimal point. Things that engrossed me,
and seemed of such moment, that overshadowed the duty of obeying my
conscience--what were they, and where? Ah, where? They endured but a
moment. Reality and evanescence--evanescence and reality."

The light in Sylvia's room was out now, and in the east he beheld the
dawn. T