“Sleep! rest!” she said, rising.

She passed her hands over Wilfrid’s brow; then the following sentences escaped her lips, one by one,—­all different in tone and accent, but all melodious, full of a Goodness that seemed to emanate from her head in vaporous waves, like the gleams the goddess chastely lays upon Endymion sleeping.

“I cannot show myself such as I am to thee, dear Wilfrid,—­to thee who art strong.

“The hour is come; the hour when the effulgent lights of the future cast their reflections backward on the soul; the hour when the soul awakes into freedom.

“Now am I permitted to tell thee how I love thee.  Dost thou not see the nature of my love, a love without self-interest; a sentiment full of thee, thee only; a love which follows thee into the future to light that future for thee—­for it is the one True Light.  Canst thou now conceive with what ardor I would have thee leave this life which weighs thee down, and behold thee nearer than thou art to that world where Love is never-failing?  Can it be aught but suffering to love for one life only?  Hast thou not felt a thirst for the eternal love?  Dost thou not feel the bliss to which a creature rises when, with twin-soul, it loves the Being who betrays not love, Him before whom we kneel in adoration?

“Would I had wings to cover thee, Wilfrid; power to give thee strength to enter now into that world where all the purest joys of purest earthly attachments are but shadows in the Light that shines, unceasing, to illumine and rejoice all hearts.

“Forgive a friendly soul for showing thee the picture of thy sins, in the charitable hope of soothing the sharp pangs of thy remorse.  Listen to the pardoning choir; refresh thy soul in the dawn now rising for thee beyond the night of death.  Yes, thy life, thy true life is there!

“May my words now reach thee clothed in the glorious forms of dreams; may they deck themselves with images glowing and radiant as they hover round you.  Rise, rise, to the height where men can see themselves distinctly, pressed together though they be like grains of sand upon a sea-shore.  Humanity rolls out like a many-colored ribbon.  See the diverse shades of that flower of the celestial gardens.  Behold the beings who lack intelligence, those who begin to receive it, those who have passed through trials, those who love, those who follow wisdom and aspire to the regions of Light!

“Canst thou comprehend, through this thought made visible, the destiny of humanity?—­whence it came, whither to goeth?  Continue steadfast in the Path.  Reaching the end of thy journey thou shalt hear the clarions of omnipotence sounding the cries of victory in chords of which a single one would shake the earth, but which are lost in the spaces of a world that hath neither east nor west.

“Canst thou comprehend, my poor beloved Tried-one, that unless the torpor and the veils of sleep had wrapped thee, such sights would rend and bear away thy mind as the whirlwinds rend and carry into space the feeble sails, depriving thee forever of thy reason?  Dost thou understand that the Soul itself, raised to its utmost power can scarcely endure in dreams the burning communications of the Spirit?