, ere the first hour of morning, decide on your fate. Will you
marry Isabel di Pisani, or lose her forever? Consult not your friend; he
is sensible and wise, but not now is his wisdom needed. There are times
in life when from the imagination, and not the reason, should wisdom
come,--this for you is one of them. I ask not your answer now. Collect
your thoughts, recover your jaded and scattered spirits. It wants two
hours of midnight: at midnight I will be with you!"

"Incomprehensible being," replied the Englishman, "I would leave the
life you have preserved in your own hands. But since I have known you,
my whole nature has changed. A fiercer desire than that of love burns
in my veins,--the desire, not to resemble, but to surpass my kind; the
desire to penetrate and to share the secret of your own existence; the
desire of a preternatural knowledge and unearthly power. Instruct me,
school me, make me thine; and I surrender to thee at once, and without a
murmur, the woman that, till I saw thee, I would have defied a world to
obtain."

"I ask not the sacrifice, Glyndon," replied Zicci, coldly, yet mildly,
"yet--shall I own it to thee?--I am touched by the devotion I have
inspired. I sicken for human companionship, sympathy, and friendship;
yet I dread to share them, for bold must be the man who can partake
my existence and enjoy my confidence. Once more I say to thee,
in compassion and in warning, the choice of life is in thy
hands,--to-morrow it will be too late. On the one hand, Isabel, a
tranquil home, a happy and serene life; on the other hand all is
darkness, darkness that even this eye cannot penetrate."

"But thou hast told me that if I wed Isabel I must be contented to be
obscure; and if I refuse, that knowledge and power may be mine."

"Vain man! knowledge and power are not happiness."

"But they are better than happiness. Say, if I marry Isabel, wilt thou
be my master, my guide? Say this, and I am resolved."

"Never! It is only the lonely at heart, the restless, the desperate,
that may be my pupils."

"Then I renounce her! I renounce love, I renounce happiness. Welcome
solitude, welcome despair, if they are the entrances to thy dark and
sublime secret."

"I will not take thy answer now; at midnight thou shalt give it in one
word,--ay, or no! Farewell till then!"

The mystic waved his hand, and descending rapidly, was seen no more.

Glyndon rejoined his impatient and wondering friend; but Merton, gazing