and yet so prized. You ask me why I labor through the night? Foolish
child! why you must know that the clock for which the city has offered
so extravagant a prize, and to obtain which, not I alone, but so many
others are wasting their health and squandering their youth--you must
know that this clock is not only to tell the hour of the day, and the
month of the year, but to contain within its works the secret of the
movements of the heavenly bodies;--that to obtain this prize they must
read the wonders of the skies, and penetrate its mysteries. It is a
wild and fearful study, Marguerite--a study, the pursuit of which is
not calculated by the hands on the dial-plate. Even now I marvel at
the audacity of the men who proposed such a design, and the boldness
of those who, like myself, have undertaken to fulfill it. You cannot
imagine, Marguerite, how such contemplations remove one from the
world in which we live. Until I knew you, Marguerite, I cared for and
thought of nothing else."

"And even now, Dumiger, is this not the case?" said she, with a gentle
smile.

"No, to your love I owe all, Marguerite," he answered. "It seemed
to purify my feelings, to elevate my mind to the height of this vast
argument--until I knew you there was a link wanting in my life. When I
used to ponder on the marvelous love of the Infinite, which could work
out this wondrous system, and give man the faculty and the desire
of comprehending it, I felt that the mind contained capacities long
concealed from its owner; I felt that even in this world there must be
at some time a perfect revelation of perfect love to man, beyond that
love of nature which is to be derived from the study of this world's
natural laws and those of the lights which rule it. I was then
unsatisfied, Marguerite, for there was a void in my heart which