d a night passed in prayers and
macerations, Rancey sank down exhausted on the floor of his cell! Then
the spirit freed itself from the vile clogs of matter. His senses were
absorbed in pleasure; the sound of heavenly harmony struck upon his
ravished car; a bright, mild light, which was not of this world, dawned
upon his half-closed eyes; and, at the height of the melodious vibrations
of the golden harps of the Seraphim, in the centre of a glory, compared
to which the sun is pale, the monk beheld the image of that beloved
woman--"

"Whom by his prayers he had at length rescued from the eternal flames?"
said Hardy, in a trembling voice.

"Yes, herself," replied Rodin, with eloquent enthusiasm, for this monster
was skilled in every style of speech. "Thanks to the prayers of her
lover, which the Lord had granted, this woman no longer shed tears of
blood--no longer writhed her beautiful arms in the convulsions of
infernal anguish. No, no; still fair--oh! a thousand times fairer than
when she dwelt on earth--fair with the everlasting beauty of angels--she
smiled on her lover with ineffable ardor, and, her eyes beaming with a
mild radiance, she said to him in a tender and passionate voice: 'Glory
to the Lord! glory to thee, O my beloved! Thy prayers and austerities
have saved me. I am numbered amongst the chosen. Thanks, my beloved, and
glory!'--And therewith, radiant in her felicity, she stooped to kiss,
with lips fragrant with immortality, the lips of the enraptured monk--and
their souls mingled in that kiss, burning as love, chaste as divine grace
immense as eternity!"

"Oh!" cried Hardy, completely beside himself; "a whole life of prayer,
fasting, torture, for such a moment--with her, whom I mourn--with her,
whom I have perhaps led to perdition!"

"What do you say? such a moment!" cried Rodin, whose yellow forehead was
bathed in sweat like that of a magnetizer, and who now took Hardy by the
hand, and drew still closer, as if to breathe into him the burning
delirium; "it was not once in his religious life--it was almost every
day, that Rancey, plunged in divine ecstasy, enjoyed these delicious,
ineffable, superhuman pleasures, which are to the pleasures of earth what
eternity is to man's existence!"

Seeing, no doubt, that Hardy was now at the point to which he wished to
bring him, and the night being almost entirely come, the reverend father
coughed two or three times in a significant manner, and looked towards
the