Theirs was a strange courtship—­Spero’s and Iclea’s.  The lovely young Norwegian lady had recently lost her mother, and being, like many of the cultivated women of Northern Europe, somewhat dubious of the dogmas of religion, she had found death a terrible mystery when it was thus brought sharply home to her.  She was wandering in the dreadful labyrinth of modern doubt, vainly seeking to forget her trouble in the excitements of mountaineering, when she saw the unearthly apparition of the young French philosopher.  A study of his works heightened the feeling of awe with which she already regarded him.  At first there was no room for love in the passionate desire after knowledge which drew her to him.  She was merely a disciple sitting at the feet of the great master.  Accompanied by her father, she continued her studies under him when he returned to Paris, and for three months they were bound together wholly by intellectual interest.  For several hours every day they studied side by side, and much of Iclea’s time was spent in translating papers in foreign languages, bearing on subjects in which Georges was interested.  One morning he arrived earlier than usual, his eyes shining with joy.

“I have settled the problem,” he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece.  “At least,” he added, with his usual modesty, “I have settled it to my own satisfaction.”

Striding up and down the room, he rapidly sketched out a system of philosophy in which the ultimate truths of modern science were transformed into the bases of religion.  Iclea listened to him in silence as he went on to explain the spiritual forces still dormant in the human soul.

“We are still in our spiritual infancy,” he said.  “It is scarcely four thousand years since mankind began to manifest its higher powers.  Our greatest conquests over nature are all of recent date, and they are the work of a few noble souls who have erected themselves above the animal conditions of life.  The reign of brute force is over, and I am certain that as soon as we learn to exercise the powers of our soul we shall acquire transcendental faculties that will enable us to transport ourselves from one world to another.”

“That, too, is my belief,” said Iclea.

Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through which her very soul was speaking.  There was a strange silence, and then their lips met.

* * * * *

For some months I lost sight of my two friends.  In the ecstasy of their love they forgot for a while the problems of philosophy which had brought them together.  The joys of intellectual communion were submerged and almost lost in the new, strange feeling which crowned and glorified their lives.  Hand in hand the lovers wandered about Paris, which had now become to them a city in fairyland.  Meeting them one evening on the banks of the Seine, I learned that they were returning to Norway with Iclea’s father, and that they were to be married at Christiania on the anniversary of the mysterious apparition on the mountain which had brought them together.  Georges was about to resume his interrupted studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he wished to trace to its source by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea intended to accompany him in his voyage through the air.