"Nations have gone mad before now." "Ah!--prophesy, prophesy!" said the Chief Justice sadly.

"All very well for you young men, but for us, who are passing away! Here we are at the birth.

Shall we never, in any state of being, know the end?
I have never felt so bitterly as I do now the limitations of our knowledge and our life." No one answered him.

But Elizabeth looking up saw the aspect of Mariette--the aspect of a thinker and a mystic--slowly relax.

Its harshness became serenity, its bitterness peace.