restrained ecstacy. From his words he seemed still to
be hearkening the sounds aerial, though to Donal at least they came no
more.

"Yet once again," he murmured, "once again ere I forsake the flesh, are
my ears blest with that voice! It is the song of the eternal woman! For
me she sings!--Sing on, siren; my soul is a listening universe, and
therein nought but thy voice!"

He paused, and began afresh:--

"It is the wind in the tree of life! Its leaves rustle in words of
love. Under its shadow I shall lie, with her I loved--and killed! Ere
that day come, she will have forgiven and forgotten, and all will be
well!

"Hark the notes! Clear as a flute! Full and stringent as a violin! They
are colours! They are flowers! They are alive! I can see them as they
grow, as they blow! Those are primroses! Those are pimpernels! Those
high, intense, burning tones--so soft, yet so certain--what are they?
Jasmine?--No, that flower is not a note! It is a chord!--and what a
chord! I mean, what a flower! I never saw that flower before--never on
this earth! It must be a flower of the paradise whence comes the music!
It is! It is! Do I not remember the night when I sailed in the great
ship over the ocean of the stars, and scented the airs of heaven, and
saw the pearly gates gleaming across myriads of wavering miles!--saw,
plain as I see them now, the flowers on the fields within! Ah, me! the
dragon that guards the golden apples! See his crest--his crest and his
emerald eyes! He comes floating up through the murky lake! It is
Geryon!--come to bear me to the gyre below!"

He turned, and with a somewhat quickened step left the room, hastily
shutting the door behind him, as if to keep back the creature of his
vision.

Strong-hearted and strong-brained, Donal had yet stood absorbed as if
he too were out of the body, and knew nothing more of this earth. There
is something more terrible in a presence that is not a presence than in
a vision of the bodiless; that is, a present ghost is not so terrible
as an absent one, a present but deserted body. He stood a moment
helpless, then pulled himself together and tried to think. What should
he do? What could he do? What was required of him? Was anything
required of him? Had he any right to do anything? Could anything be
done that would not both be and cause a wrong? His first impulse was to
follow: a man in such a condition was surely not to be left to go
whither he would among the heights and dept