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.

"Speech is the endowment of us all," resumed the mysterious creature,
gravely. "Woe to him who keeps silence, even in a desert, believing
that no one hears him; all voices speak and all ears listen here
below. Speech moves the universe. Monsieur Becker, I desire to say
nothing unnecessarily. I know the difficulties that beset your mind;
would you not think it a miracle if I were now to lay bare the past
history of your consciousness? Well, the miracle shall be
accomplished. You have never admitted to yourself the full extent of
your doubts. I alone, immovable in my faith, I can show it to you; I
can terrify you with yourself.

"You stand on the darkest side of Doubt. You do not believe in God,
--although you know it not,--and all things here below are secondary
to him who rejects the first principle of things. Let us leave aside
the fruitless discussions of false philosophy. The spiritualist
generations made as many and as vain efforts to deny Matter as the
materialist generations have made to deny Spirit. Why such
discussions? Does not man himself offer irrefragable proof of both
systems? Do we not find in him material things and spiritual things?