ions where thou canst find
no spring of waters, no umbrageous shade. If on the Falberg thou couldst
not gaze into the abyss and live, keep all thy strength for him who will
love thee. Go, poor girl; thou knowest, I am betrothed."

Minna rose and followed Seraphita to the window where Wilfrid stood. All
three listened to the Sieg bounding out the rush of the upper waters,
which brought down trees uprooted by the ice; the fiord had regained
its voice; all illusions were dispelled! They rejoiced in Nature as she
burst her bonds and seemed to answer with sublime accord to the Spirit
whose breath had wakened her.

When the three guests of this mysterious being left the house, they were
filled with the vague sensation which is neither sleep, nor torpor,
nor astonishment, but partakes of the nature of each,--a state that is
neither dusk nor dawn, but which creates a thirst for light. All three
were thinking.

"I begin to believe that she is indeed a Spirit hidden in human form,"
said Monsieur Becker.

Wilfrid, re-entering his own apartments, calm and convinced, was unable
to struggle against that influence so divinely majestic.

Minna said in her heart, "Why will he not let me love him!"

CHAPTER V. FAREWELL

There is in man an almost hopeless phenomenon for thoughtful minds who
seek a meaning in the march of civilization, and who endeavor to give
laws of progression to the movement of intelligence. However portentous
a fact may be, or even supernatural,--if such facts exist,--however
solemnly a miracle may be done in sight of all, the lightning of that
fact, the thunderbolt of that miracle is quickly swallowed up in the
ocean of life, whose surface, scarcely stirred by the brief convulsion,
returns to the level of its habitual flow.

A Voice is heard from the jaws of an Animal; a Hand writes on the wall
before a feasting Court; an Eye gleams in the slumber of a king, and a
Prophet explains the dream; Death, evoked, rises on the confines of the
luminous sphere were faculties revive; Spirit annihilates Matter at the
foot of that mystic ladder of the Seven Spiritual Worlds, one resting
upon another in space and revealing themselves in shining waves that
break in light upon the steps of the celestial Tabernacle. But however
solemn the inward Revelation, however clear the visible outward Sign,
be sure that on the morrow Balaam doubts both himself and his ass,
Belshazzar and Pharoah call Moses and Daniel to qualify