At
length her voice took up the theme. The silvery thread became song,
and through all the opposing, supporting harmonies she led it to the
solution of a close in which the only sorrow was in the music
itself, for its very life is an 'endless ending.' She found Robert
kneeling by her side. As she turned from the instrument his head
drooped over her knee. She laid her hand on his clustering curls,
bethought herself, and left the room. Robert wandered out as in a
dream. At midnight he found himself on a solitary hill-top, seated
in the heather, with a few tiny fir-trees about him, and the sounds
of a wind, ethereal as the stars overhead, flowing through their
branches: he heard the sound of it, but it did not touch him.
Where was God?
In him and his question.
CHAPTER XX.
ERICSON LOSES TO WIN.
If Mary St. John had been an ordinary woman, and if,
notwithstanding, Robert had been in love with her, he would have
done very little in preparation for the coming session. But
although she now possessed him, although at times he only knew
himself as loving her, there was such a mountain air of calm about
her, such an outgoing divinity of peace, such a largely moulded
harmony of being, that he could not love her otherwise than grandly.
For her sake, weary with loving her, he would yet turn to his work,
and, to be worthy of her, or rather, for he never dreamed of being
worthy of her, to be worthy of leave to love her, would forget her
enough to lay hold of some abstract truth of lines, angles, or
symbols.
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