pool, his soul was drawn down into blackness. It shuddered, it was
afraid; this vision of a whirlpool haunted him. He could see the narrow
funnel of its waters, smooth, shining like jet, unspecked by foam, solid
to all appearances; but, as he was aware, alive, every atom of them,
instinct with some frightful energy, the very face of force--and in the
teeth of it, less than a dead leaf, himself.

Down he went, down, and still above him shone the beautiful, pitying,
changeless eyes; and still round him echoed that strange, searching
music. The eyes receded, the music became faint, and then--blackness.

CHAPTER XXIV

DREAMS AND THE SLEEP

The Christmas Day which followed this strange night proved the happiest
that Morris could ever remember to have spent since his childhood. In
his worldly circumstances of course he was oppressed by none of the
everyday worries which at this season are the lot of most--no duns came
to trouble him, nor through lack of means was he forced to turn any
beggar from his door. Also the baby was much better, and Mary's spirits
were consequently radiant. Never, indeed, had she been more lovely and
charming than when that morning she presented him with a splendid gold
chronometer to take the place of the old silver watch which was his
mother's as a girl, and that he had worn all his life. Secretly he
sorrowed over parting with that familiar companion in favour of its
new eighty-guinea rival, although it was true that it always lost ten
minutes a day, and sometimes stopped altogether. But there was no help
for it; so he kissed Mary and was grateful.

Moreover, the day was beautiful. In the morning they walked to church
through the Abbey plantations, which run for nearly half a mile along
the edge of the cliff. The rime lay thick upon the pines and firs--every
little needle had its separate coat of white whereon the sun's rays
glistened. The quiet sea, too, shone like some gigantic emerald, and in
the sweet stillness the song of a robin perched upon the bending bough
of a young poplar sounded pure and clear.

Yet it was not this calm and plenty, this glittering ocean flecked with
white sails, and barred by delicate lines of smoke, this blue and
happy sky, nor all the other good things that were given to him in such
abundance, which steeped his heart in Sabbath rest. Although he sought
no inspiration from such drugs, and, indeed, was a stranger to them,
rather was his joy the joy of the opium