g into
the salon he fell exhausted and motionless on a wide divan covered with
furs.

"What will you take?" asked the old man, lighting the immensely tall
wax-candles that are used in Norway.

"Nothing, David, I am too weary."

Seraphitus unfastened his pelisse lined with sable, threw it over him,
and fell asleep. The old servant stood for several minutes gazing with
loving eyes at the singular being before him, whose sex it would have
been difficult for any one at that moment to determine. Wrapped as he
was in a formless garment, which resembled equally a woman's robe and a
man's mantle, it was impossible not to fancy that the slender feet
which hung at the side of the couch were those of a woman, and equally
impossible not to note how the forehead and the outlines of the head
gave evidence of power brought to its highest pitch.

"She suffers, and she will not tell me," thought the old man. "She is
dying, like a flower wilted by the burning sun."

And the old man wept.

CHAPTER II. SERAPHITA

Later in the evening David re-entered the salon.

"I know who it is you have come to announce," said Seraphita in a sleepy
voice. "Wilfrid may enter."

Hearing these words a man suddenly presented himself, crossed the room
and sat down beside her.

"My dear Seraphita, are you ill?" he said. "You look paler than usual."

She turned slowly towards him, tossing back her hair like a pretty woman
whose aching head leaves her no strength even for complaint.

"I was foolish enough to cross the fiord with Minna," she said. "We
ascended the Falberg."

"Do you mean to kill yourself?" he said with a lover's terror.

"No, my good Wilfrid; I took the greatest care of your Minna."

Wilfrid struck his hand violently on a table, rose hastily, and made
several steps towards the door with an exclamation full of pain; then he
returned and seemed about to remonstrate.

"Why this disturbance if you think me ill?" she said.

"Forgive me, have mercy!" he cried, kneeling beside her. "Speak to me
harshly if you will; exact all that the cruel fancies of a woman lead
you to imagine I least can bear; but oh, my beloved, do not doubt my
love. You take Minna like an axe to hew me down. Have mercy!"

"Why do you say these things, my friend, when you know that they are
useless?" she replied, with a look which grew in the end so soft that
Wilfrid ceased to behold her eyes, but saw in their place a fluid light,
the shimmer of which w