that have been torn away, and I feel life dawn in my brain—­a glowing life, a life of fever and delight.  This life which you have just given me is wonderful.  It is so heavenly that it makes me suffer somewhat.  It seems as though my soul is enlarged, and can scarcely be contained in my body.  This life of seraphim, this plenitude, flows into my brain and penetrates it.  I feel like a beating of wings within my breast.  I feel strangely, but happy.  Gwynplaine, you have been my resurrection.”

She flushed, became pale, then flushed again, and fell.

“Alas!” said Ursus, “you have killed her.”

Gwynplaine stretched his arms towards Dea.  Extremity of anguish coming upon extremity of ecstasy, what a shock!  He would himself have fallen, had he not had to support her.

“Dea!” he cried, shuddering, “what is the matter?”

“Nothing,” said she—­“I love you!”

She lay in his arms, lifeless, like a piece of linen; her hands were hanging down helplessly.

Gwynplaine and Ursus placed Dea on the mattress.  She said, feebly,—­

“I cannot breathe lying down.”

They lifted her up.

Ursus said,—­

“Fetch a pillow.”

She replied,—­

“What for?  I have Gwynplaine!”

She laid her head on Gwynplaine’s shoulder, who was sitting behind, and supporting her, his eyes wild with grief.

“Oh,” said she, “how happy I am!”

Ursus took her wrist, and counted the pulsation of the artery.  He did not shake his head.  He said nothing, nor expressed his thought except by the rapid movement of his eyelids, which were opening and closing convulsively, as if to prevent a flood of tears from bursting out.

“What is the matter?” asked Gwynplaine.

Ursus placed his ear against Dea’s left side.

Gwynplaine repeated his question eagerly, fearful of the answer.

Ursus looked at Gwynplaine, then at Dea.  He was livid.  He said,—­

“We ought to be parallel with Canterbury.  The distance from here to Gravesend cannot be very great.  We shall have fine weather all night.  We need fear no attack at sea, because the fleets are all on the coast of Spain.  We shall have a good passage.”

Dea, bent, and growing paler and paler, clutched her robe convulsively.  She heaved a sigh of inexpressible sadness, and murmured,—­

“I know what this is.  I am dying!”

Gwynplaine rose in terror.  Ursus held Dea.

“Die!  You die!  No; it shall not be!  You cannot die!  Die now!  Die at once!  It is impossible!  God is not ferociously cruel—­to give you and to take you back in the same moment.  No; such a thing cannot be.  It would make one doubt in Him.  Then, indeed, would everything be a snare—­the earth, the sky, the cradles of infants, the human heart, love, the stars.  God would be a traitor and man a dupe.  There would be nothing in which to believe.  It would be an