upon my lips, and I myself have become the involuntary minister of these mysteries.  You see me here to-night, for the hundredth time, bruised, defeated, broken, after leaving the hallucinating sphere which surrounds that young girl, so gentle, so fragile to both of you, but to me the cruellest of magicians!  Yes, to me she is like a sorcerer holding in her right hand the invisible wand that moves the globe, and in her left the thunderbolt that rends asunder all things at her will.  No longer can I look upon her brow; the light of it is insupportable.  I skirt the borders of the abyss of madness too closely to be longer silent.  I must speak.  I seize this moment, when courage comes to me, to resist the power which drags me onward without inquiring whether or not I have the force to follow.  Who is she?  Did you know her young?  What of her birth?  Had she father and mother, or was she born of the conjunction of ice and sun?  She burns and yet she freeze; she shows herself and then withdraws; she attracts me and repulses me; she brings me life, she gives me death; I love her and yet I hate her!  I cannot live thus; let me be wholly in heaven or in hell!”

Holding his refilled pipe in one hand, and in the other the cover which he forgot to replace, Monsieur Becker listened to Wilfrid with a mysterious expression on his face, looking occasionally at his daughter, who seemed to understand the man’s language as in harmony with the strange being who inspired it.  Wilfrid was splendid to behold at this moment,—­like Hamlet listening to the ghost of his father as it rises for him alone in the midst of the living.

“This is certainly the language of a man in love,” said the good pastor, innocently.

“In love!” cried Wilfrid, “yes, to common minds.  But, dear Monsieur Becker, no words can express the frenzy which draws me to the feet of that unearthly being.”

“Then you do love her?” said Minna, in a tone of reproach.

“Mademoiselle, I feel such extraordinary agitation when I see her, and such deep sadness when I see her no more, that in any other man what I feel would be called love.  But that sentiment draws those who feel it ardently together, whereas between her and me a great gulf lies, whose icy coldness penetrates my very being in her presence; though the feeling dies away when I see her no longer.  I leave her in despair; I return to her with ardor,—­like men of science who seek a secret from Nature only to be baffled, or like the painter who would fain put life upon his canvas and strives with all the resources of his art in the vain attempt.”

“Monsieur, all that you say is true,” replied the young girl, artlessly.

“How can you know, Minna?” asked the old pastor.

“Ah! my father, had you been with us this morning on the summit of the Falberg, had you seen him praying, you would not ask me that question.  You would say, like Monsieur Wilfrid, that he saw his Seraphita for the first time in our temple, ‘It is the Spirit of Prayer.’”