olar gleam. Though at first a somewhat disdainful expression lurked in
the wrinkles of his face, his look presently assumed the fixity which
seems to gaze on an object invisible to the ordinary organs of sight.
His eyes, no doubt, were seeing then the remoter images which the grave
has in store for us.

Never, perhaps, had this man presented so grand an aspect. A terrible
struggle was going on in his soul, and reacted on his outer frame;
strong man as he seemed to be, he bent as a reed bows under the breeze
that comes before a storm. Godefroid stood motionless, speechless,
spellbound; some inexplicable force nailed him to the floor; and, as
happens when our attention takes us out of ourselves while watching a
fire or a battle, he was wholly unconscious of his body.

"Shall I tell you the fate to which you were hastening, poor angel
of love? Listen! It has been given to me to see immeasurable space,
bottomless gulfs in which all human creations are swallowed up, the
shoreless sea whither flows the vast stream of men and of angels. As I
made my way through the realms of eternal torment, I was sheltered under
the cloak of an immortal--the robe of glory due to genius, and which the
ages hand on--I, a frail mortal! When I wandered through the fields of
light where the happy souls play, I was borne up by the love of a woman,
the wings of an angel; resting on her heart, I could taste the ineffable
pleasures whose touch is more perilous to us mortals than are the
torments of the worser world.

"As I achieved my pilgrimage through the dark regions below I had
mounted from torture to torture, from crime to crime, from punishment to
punishment, from awful silence to heartrending cries, till I reached the
uppermost circle of Hell. Already, from afar, I could see the glory of
Paradise shining at a vast distance; I was still in darkness, but on the
borders of day. I flew, upheld by my Guide, borne along by a power akin
to that which, during our dreams, wafts us to spheres invisible to the
eye of the body. The halo that crowned our heads seared away the shades
as we passed, like impalpable dust. Far above us the suns of all the
worlds shone with scarce so much light as the twinkling fireflies of my
native land. I was soaring towards the fields of air where, round about
Paradise, the bodies of light are in closer array, where the azure is
easy to pass through, where worlds innumerable spring like flowers in a
meadow.

"There, on th