Marguerite," he exclaimed, clasping her in his arms, "you
know not what you are saying. Look here!" and he rose hurriedly from
his seat and drew her toward the window; "do you see that star in the
east, how bright it is, that you can even distinguish the ray it sheds
from the gray light which breaks from behind those masses of clouds?
By that light I tell you I shall succeed in my most extravagant
expectations. How many anxious nights I have waited for that
star! Until I saw it I had no hope--now, my hope can scarcely find
expression. I am grateful to Thee, O Providence, for this revelation,
for the accomplishment of all my wishes;" and he bowed his head as
though in adoration, and almost sank on his knees.

Marguerite looked at him as if she dreaded that his brain was turned.
Dumiger interpreted that look; for what look is there that love cannot
interpret?

"No, Marguerite, I am not mad, believe me. This toil has not yet
turned my brain, though it might indeed have done so, for it is sad
and hard to labor night after night in pursuit of an object so distant
and yet so prized. You ask me why I labor through the night? Foolish
child! why you must know that the clock for which the city has offered
so extravagant a prize, and to obtain which, not I alone, but so many
others are wasting their health and squandering their youth--you must
know that this clock is not only to tell the hour of the day, and the
month of the year, but to contain within its works the secret of the
movements of the heavenly bodies;--that to obtain this prize they must
read the wonders of the skies, and penetrate its mysteries. It is a
wild and fearful study, Marguerite--a study, the pursuit of which is
not calculated by the hands on the dial-plate. Even now I marvel at
the audacity of the men who proposed such a design, and the boldness
of those who, like myself, have undertaken to fulfill it. You cannot
imagine, Marguerite, how such contemplations remove one from the
world in which we live. Until I knew you, Marguerite, I cared for and
thought of nothing else."

"And even now, Dumiger, is this not the case?" said she, with a gentle
smile.

"No, to your love I owe all, Marguerite," he answered. "It seemed
to purify my feelings, to elevate my mind to the height of this vast
argument--until I knew you there was a link wanting in my life. When I
used to ponder on the marvelous love of the Infinite, which could work
out this wondrous system, and gi