There was no reply: only the mutterings of a madman.
“Maurice! Maurice! speak to me! Do you not know me? Louise! Your Louise! You have called me so? Say it—O say it again!”
“Ah! you are very beautiful, you angels here in heaven! Very beautiful. Yes, yes; you look so—to the eyes—to the eyes. But don’t say there are none like you upon the Earth; for there are—there are. I know one—ah! more—but one that excels you all, you angels in heaven! I mean in beauty—in goodness, that’s another thing. I’m not thinking of goodness—no; no.”
“Maurice, dear Maurice! Why do you talk thus? You are not in heaven; you are here with me—with Louise.”
“I am in heaven; yes, in heaven! I don’t wish it, for all they say; that is, unless I can have her with me. It may be a pleasant place. Not without her. If she were here, I could be content. Hear it, ye angels, that come hovering around me! Very beautiful, you are, I admit; but none of you like her—her—my angel. Oh! there’s a devil, too; a beautiful devil—I don’t mean that. I’m thinking only of the angel of the prairies.”
“Do you remember her name?”
Perhaps never was question put to a delirious man, where the questioner showed so much interest in the answer.
She bent over him with ears upon the strain—with eyes that marked every movement of his lips.
“Name? name? Did some one say, name? Have you any names here? Oh! I remember—Michael, Gabriel, Azrael—men, all men. Angels, not like my angel—who is a woman. Her name is—”
“Is?”