. Your words are
incomprehensible, but they charm me. What is it you mean to say?"

"You are right; I forget to be foolish,--to be the poor creature whose
weaknesses gratify you. I torment you, Wilfrid. You came to these
Northern lands for rest, you, worn-out by the impetuous struggle of
genius unrecognized, you, weary with the patient toils of science, you,
who well-nigh dyed your hands in crime and wore the fetters of human
justice--"

Wilfrid dropped speechless on the carpet. Seraphita breathed softly on
his forehead, and in a moment he fell asleep at her feet.

"Sleep! rest!" she said, rising.

She passed her hands over Wilfrid's brow; then the following sentences
escaped her lips, one by one,--all different in tone and accent, but all
melodious, full of a Goodness that seemed to emanate from her head in
vaporous waves, like the gleams the goddess chastely lays upon Endymion
sleeping.

"I cannot show myself such as I am to thee, dear Wilfrid,--to thee who
art strong.

"The hour is come; the hour when the effulgent lights of the future cast
their reflections backward on the soul; the hour when the soul awakes
into freedom.

"Now am I permitted to tell thee how I love thee. Dost thou not see the
nature of my love, a love without self-interest; a sentiment full of
thee, thee only; a love which follows thee into the future to light that
future for thee--for it is the one True Light. Canst thou now conceive
with what ardor I would have thee leave this life which weighs thee
down, and behold thee nearer than thou art to that world where Love is
never-failing? Can it be aught but suffering to love for one life only?
Hast thou not felt a thirst for the eternal love? Dost thou not feel the
bliss to which a creature rises when, with twin-soul, it loves the Being
who betrays not love, Him before whom we kneel in adoration?

"Would I had wings to cover thee, Wilfrid; power to give thee strength
to enter now into that world where all the purest joys of purest earthly
attachments are but shadows in the Light that shines, unceasing, to
illumine and rejoice all hearts.

"Forgive a friendly soul for showing thee the picture of thy sins, in
the charitable hope of soothing the sharp pangs of thy remorse. Listen
to the pardoning choir; refresh thy soul in the dawn now rising for thee
beyond the night of death. Yes, thy life, thy true life is there!

"May my words now reach thee clothed in the glorious forms of dreams;
may