"His secrets are not mine," replied Minna. "When I am with him, I know all things; away from him, I know nothing; with him, I cease to be myself; away from him, I forget that more perfect life. Seeing him is as a dream, of which my remembrance depends on his will. I may have heard, when with him, the music of which Bancker's wife and Erikson's speak, and forget it when we are apart; I may have perceived those celestial perfumes and have beheld marvels, and yet know nothing of them here."
"What has most surprised me since I first knew her," said the pastor to Wilfrid, "is that she should allow you to approach her."
"To approach her!" said the stranger. "She has never allowed me to kiss nor even to touch her hand. The first time I saw her she abashed me by her look, and said, 'You are welcome here; you were due to come.' It was as though she knew me. I trembled.—My fear makes me believe in her."
"And my love," said Minna, without a blush.
"Are you making fun of me?" said the pastor, laughing with good humor; "you, my child, in calling yourself a Spirit of Love; and you, sir, in making yourself out to be a Spirit of Wisdom?"
He drank off a glass of beer, and did not observe a singular look which Wilfrid gave to Minna.
"Jesting apart," Becker went on, "I was greatly amazed to hear that those two crazy girls had gone to-day for the first time to the top of the Falberg; but is not that some exaggeration? The girls must have simply climbed some hill; the summit of the Falberg is inaccessible."
"Father," said Minna, in some agitation, "I must then have been in the power of the demon; for I climbed the Falberg with him."
"This is a serious matter," said the pastor. "Minna has never told a lie."
"My dear sir," said Wilfrid, "I can assure you, Seraphita exerts the most extraordinary power over me; I know not what words can give any idea of it. She has told me things which no one but I could know."