of voice and limbs?--Ah! gentlemen, be we on our deathbeds, we yet
must smile to please you; you call that, methinks, your right. Poor
women! I pity them. Tell me, you who abandon them when they grow old,
is it because they have neither hearts nor souls? Wilfrid, I am a
hundred years old; leave me! leave me! go to Minna!"

"Oh, my eternal love!"

"Do you know the meaning of eternity? Be silent, Wilfrid. You desire
me, but you do not love me. Tell me, do I not seem to you like those
coquettish Parisian women?"

"Certainly I no longer find you the pure celestial maiden I first saw
in the church of Jarvis."

At these words Seraphita passed her hands across her brow, and when
she removed them Wilfrid was amazed at the saintly expression that
overspread her face.

"You are right, my friend," she said; "I do wrong whenever I set my
feet upon your earth."

"Oh, Seraphita, be my star! stay where you can ever bless me with that
clear light!"

As he spoke, he stretched forth his hand to take that of the young
girl, but she withdrew it, neither disdainfully nor in anger. Wilfrid
rose abruptly and walked to the window that she might not see the
tears that rose to his eyes.