She left him thoughtful.

“That soft creature!” he said within himself; “is she indeed the prophetess whose eyes have just flashed lightnings, whose voice has rung through worlds, whose hand has wielded the axe of doubt against our sciences?  Have we been dreaming?  Am I awake?”

“Minna,” said Seraphita, returning to the young girl, “the eagle swoops where the carrion lies, but the dove seeks the mountain spring beneath the peaceful greenery of the glades.  The eagle soars to heaven, the dove descends from it.  Cease to venture into regions where thou canst find no spring of waters, no umbrageous shade.  If on the Falberg thou couldst not gaze into the abyss and live, keep all thy strength for him who will love thee.  Go, poor girl; thou knowest, I am betrothed.”

Minna rose and followed Seraphita to the window where Wilfrid stood.  All three listened to the Sieg bounding out the rush of the upper waters, which brought down trees uprooted by the ice; the fiord had regained its voice; all illusions were dispelled!  They rejoiced in Nature as she burst her bonds and seemed to answer with sublime accord to the Spirit whose breath had wakened her.

When the three guests of this mysterious being left the house, they were filled with the vague sensation which is neither sleep, nor torpor, nor astonishment, but partakes of the nature of each,—­a state that is neither dusk nor dawn, but which creates a thirst for light.  All three were thinking.

“I begin to believe that she is indeed a Spirit hidden in human form,” said Monsieur Becker.

Wilfrid, re-entering his own apartments, calm and convinced, was unable to struggle against that influence so divinely majestic.

Minna said in her heart, “Why will he not let me love him!”

CHAPTER V

FAREWELL

There is in man an almost hopeless phenomenon for thoughtful minds who seek a meaning in the march of civilization, and who endeavor to give laws of progression to the movement of intelligence.  However portentous a fact may be, or even supernatural,—­if such facts exist, —­however solemnly a miracle may be done in sight of all, the lightning of that fact, the thunderbolt of that miracle is quickly swallowed up in the ocean of life, whose surface, scarcely stirred by the brief convulsion, returns to the level of its habitual flow.

A Voice is heard from the jaws of an Animal; a Hand writes on the wall before a feasting Court; an Eye gleams in the slumber of a king, and a Prophet explains the dream; Death, evoked, rises on the confines of the luminous sphere were faculties revive; Spirit annihilates Matter at the foot of that mystic ladder of the Seven Spiritual Worlds, one resting upon another in space and revealing themselves in shining waves that break in light upon the steps of the celestial Tabernacle.  But however solemn the inward Revelation, however clear