lines of Polyhymnia's veil.
Then she stretched forth her hand. Wilfrid rose. When he looked at
Seraphita she was lying on the bear's-skin, her head resting on her
hand, her face calm, her eyes brilliant. Wilfrid gazed at her silently;
but his face betrayed a deferential fear in its almost timid expression.

"Yes, dear," he said at last, as though he were answering some question;
"we are separated by worlds. I resign myself; I can only adore you. But
what will become of me, poor and alone!"

"Wilfrid, you have Minna."

He shook his head.

"Do not be so disdainful; woman understands all things through love;
what she does not understand she feels; what she does not feel she sees;
when she neither sees, nor feels, nor understands, this angel of earth
divines to protect you, and hides her protection beneath the grace of
love."

"Seraphita, am I worthy to belong to a woman?"

"Ah, now," she said, smiling, "you are suddenly very modest; is it a
snare? A woman is always so touched to see her weakness glorified. Well,
come and take tea with me the day after to-morrow evening; good Monsieur
Becker will be here, and Minna, the purest and most artless creature
I have known on earth. Leave me now, my friend; I need to make long
prayers and expiate my sins."

"You, can you commit sin?"

"Poor friend! if we abuse our power, is not that the sin of pride? I
have been very proud to-day. Now leave me, till to-morrow."

"Till to-morrow," said Wilfrid faintly, casting a long glance at the
being of whom he desired to carry with him an ineffaceable memory.

Though he wished to go far away, he was held, as it were, outside the
house for some moments, watching the light which shone from all the
windows of the Swedish dwelling.

"What is the matter with me?" he asked himself. "No, she is not a mere
creature, but a whole creation. Of her world, even through veils and
clouds, I have caught echoes like the memory of sufferings healed,
like the dazzling vertigo of dreams in which we hear the plaints of
generations mingling with the harmonies of some higher sphere where all
is Light and all is Love. Am I awake? Do I still sleep? Are these the
eyes before which the luminous space retreated further and further
indefinitely while the eyes followed it? The night is cold, yet my head
is on fire. I will go to the parsonage. With the pastor and his daughter
I shall recover the balance of my mind."

But still he did not leave the spot whence