“It was nothing,” she answered; “the suffering gladdened me; it was necessary, to enable me to leave this life.”

“Then death does not alarm you?” said Monsieur Becker, smiling, for he did not think her ill.

“No, dear pastor; there are two ways of dying:  to some, death is victory, to others, defeat.”

“Do you think that you have conquered?” asked Minna.

“I do not know,” she said, “perhaps I have only taken a step in the path.”

The lustrous splendor of her brow grew dim, her eyes were veiled beneath slow-dropping lids; a simple movement which affected the prying guests and kept them silent.  Monsieur Becker was the first to recover courage.

“Dear child,” he said, “you are truth itself, and you are ever kind.  I would ask of you to-night something other than the dainties of your tea-table.  If we may believe certain persons, you know amazing things; if this be true, would it not be charitable in you to solve a few of our doubts?”

“Ah!” she said smiling, “I walk on the clouds.  I visit the depths of the fiord; the sea is my steed and I bridle it; I know where the singing flower grows, and the talking light descends, and fragrant colors shine!  I wear the seal of Solomon; I am a fairy; I cast my orders to the wind which, like an abject slave, fulfils them; my eyes can pierce the earth and behold its treasures; for lo! am I not the virgin to whom the pearls dart from their ocean depths and—­”

“—­who led me safely to the summit of the Falberg?” said Minna, interrupting her.

“Thou! thou too!” exclaimed the strange being, with a luminous glance at the young girl which filled her soul with trouble.  “Had I not the faculty of reading through your foreheads the desires which have brought you here, should I be what you think I am?” she said, encircling all three with her controlling glance, to David’s great satisfaction.  The old man rubbed his hands with pleasure as he left the room.

“Ah!” she resumed after a pause, “you have come, all of you, with the curiosity of children.  You, my poor Monsieur Becker, have asked yourself how it was possible that a girl of seventeen should know even a single one of those secrets which men of science seek with their noses to the earth,—­instead of raising their eyes to heaven.  Were I to tell you how and at what point the plant merges into the animal you would begin to doubt your doubts.  You have plotted to question me; you will admit that?”

“Yes, dear Seraphita,” answered Wilfrid; “but the desire is a natural one to men, is it not?”

“You will bore this dear child with such topics,” she said, passing her hand lightly over Minna’s hair with a caressing gesture.

The young girl raised her eyes and seemed as though she longed to lose herself in him.