And perhaps in the old Christian’s mind there was an imagination of a mysterious recreation in the earth, which when the dust has quite returned to dust, should begin anew the building of an incorruptible Jenny, lying prepared there like a new garment, against the hour when the soul should seek anew its earthly vesture for the last great day.  Thus strangely will imagination build its dreams in defiance of imagination.

And in what different ways will love argue with itself!  This way of the flames, that brought such a terror to the poor mother, was one of the great consolations of the lover; and when at length on the morrow Jenny was no longer to be sought in her room, and the darkened house was once more filled with an empty light that was crueller than darkness, it brought a sense of warmth to think that Jenny was not lying stark and lonely out in that bitter churchyard, where the graves were covered with sheets of snow and hung with hoods of ice, but that through the cleansing gates of flame she had passed into the eternal elements, and was already about the business of the dreaming spring.

And in other ways this proved a consolation that never failed him.  It saved his love from those cruel foulnesses of the grave which had haunted Jenny.  That cleansing fire cleansed his fancies too.  However morbid his fancies might become, desiderium could never take any but beautiful forms.  Jenny could never come to him in any fearful images of corruption, nor could he picture her in any mouldering shape of catacomb or charnel.

She had come like a sylph out of the air, and she had returned again whence she came.  She had moved awhile about certain ever sacred rooms, and as she moved she had hummed a little song, which was her life; she had touched certain objects, she had written her name in some books, she had made little everlasting memories with her hands,—­that was her history; and now suddenly she had gone.  She had come like a dream, and she had gone like a dream.  The invisible winds had for a while rocked a flower, and now the flower was gone.  Only its perfume remained.  No one as long as the world lasted could take up some crumbling relic, and, giving the lie to love’s divine answer to the dust, say “This was Jenny!”

No! but sometimes when a bird sings in the stillness, when the moon rises above the trees, when a breath of secret violets crosses one’s path one knows not whence; sometimes when the rain is sobbing at the window, or the wind plaining about the doors; sometimes when an unknown happiness fills the heart, when a great deed has been done, when a lovely word has been spoken, in seasons of music and in all high moments, then can one say, “There, listen! that was Jenny.”

Jenny was already a legend.  She was with the great lovers.  Theophil remained behind only to write her name across the high stars.  Then he, too, would pass through the gates of fire to her side.