“My father must be anxious,” said Minna.

“No,” answered Seraphitus.

As he spoke the couple reached the porch of the humble dwelling where Monsieur Becker, the pastor of Jarvis, sat reading while awaiting his daughter for the evening meal.

“Dear Monsieur Becker,” said Seraphitus, “I have brought Minna back to you safe and sound.”

“Thank you, mademoiselle,” said the old man, laying his spectacles on his book; “you must be very tired.”

“Oh, no,” said Minna, and as she spoke she felt the soft breath of her companion on her brow.

“Dear heart, will you come day after to-morrow evening and take tea with me?”

“Gladly, dear.”

“Monsieur Becker, you will bring her, will you not?”

“Yes, mademoiselle.”

Seraphitus inclined his head with a pretty gesture, and bowed to the old pastor as he left the house.  A few moments later he reached the great courtyard of the Swedish villa.  An old servant, over eighty years of age, appeared in the portico bearing a lantern.  Seraphitus slipped off his snow-shoes with the graceful dexterity of a woman, then darting into the salon he fell exhausted and motionless on a wide divan covered with furs.

“What will you take?” asked the old man, lighting the immensely tall wax-candles that are used in Norway.

“Nothing, David, I am too weary.”

Seraphitus unfastened his pelisse lined with sable, threw it over him, and fell asleep.  The old servant stood for several minutes gazing with loving eyes at the singular being before him, whose sex it would have been difficult for any one at that moment to determine.  Wrapped as he was in a formless garment, which resembled equally a woman’s robe and a man’s mantle, it was impossible not to fancy that the slender feet which hung at the side of the couch were those of a woman, and equally impossible not to note how the forehead and the outlines of the head gave evidence of power brought to its highest pitch.

“She suffers, and she will not tell me,” thought the old man.  “She is dying, like a flower wilted by the burning sun.”

And the old man wept.

CHAPTER II

SERAPHITA

Later in the evening David re-entered the salon.

“I know who it is you have come to announce,” said Seraphita in a sleepy voice.  “Wilfrid may enter.”

Hearing these words a man suddenly presented himself, crossed the room and sat down beside her.

“My dear Seraphita, are you ill?” he said.  “You look paler than usual.”

She turned slowly towards him, tossing back her hair like a pretty woman whose aching head leaves her no strength even for complaint.

“I was foolish enough to cross the fiord with Minna,” she said.  “We ascended the Falberg.”

“Do you mean to kill yourself?” he said with a lover’s terror.