nd you have often seen their pinions moving at the
breath of God as the trees of the forest bow with one consent before the
storm. Ah, how glorious is unlimited space! Tell me."

The stranger clasped Godefroid's hand convulsively, and they both gazed
at the firmament, whence the stars seemed to shed gentle poetry which
they could bear.

"Oh, to see God!" murmured Godefroid.

"Child!" said the old man suddenly, in a sterner voice, "have you so
soon forgotten the holy teaching of our good master, Doctor Sigier? In
order to return, you to your heavenly home, and I to my native land on
earth, must we not obey the voice of God? We must walk on resignedly
in the stony paths where His almighty finger points the way. Do not
you quail at the thought of the danger to which you exposed yourself?
Arriving there without being bidden, and saying, 'Here I am!' before
your time, would you not have been cast back into a world beneath that
where your soul now hovers? Poor outcast cherub! Should you not rather
bless God for having suffered you to live in a sphere where you may hear
none but heavenly harmonies? Are you not as pure as a diamond, as lovely
as a flower?

"Think what it is to know, like me, only the City of Sorrows!--Dwelling
there I have worn out my heart.--To search the tombs for their horrible
secrets; to wipe hands steeped in blood, counting them over night after
night, seeing them rise up before me imploring forgiveness which I may
not grant; to mark the writhing of the assassin and the last shriek
of his victim; to listen to appalling noises and fearful silence, the
silence of a father devouring his dead sons; to wonder at the laughter
of the damned; to look for some human form among the livid heaps wrung
and trampled by crime; to learn words such as living men may not hear
without dying; to call perpetually on the dead, and always to accuse and
condemn!--Is that living?"

"Cease!" cried Godefroid; "I cannot see you or hear you any further!
My reason wanders, my eyes are dim. You light a fire within me which
consumes me."

"And yet I must go on!" said the senior, waving his hand with a strange
gesture that worked on the youth like a spell.

For a moment the old man fixed Godefroid with his large, weary,
lightless eyes; then he pointed with one finger to the ground. A gulf
seemed to open at his bidding. He remained standing in the doubtful
light of the moon; it lent a glory to his brow which reflected an almost
s