me."

His lips trembled, if ever so slightly, as he obeyed.

"Miriam ..." he said.

"Pronounce each syllable very distinctly and very slowly," she said, her
grey eyes all over his burning face.

"Mir ... i ... am," he repeated, looking in the center of the eyes
without flinching, and becoming instantly aware that his utterance
of the name produced in himself a development and extension of the
original overtones awakened by her speaking of his own name. It was
wonderful ... exquisite ... delicious. He uttered it again, and then
heard that she, too, was uttering his at the same moment. Each spoke the
other's name. He could have sworn he heard the music within him leap
across the intervening space and transfer itself to her ... and that he
heard his own name singing, too, in _her_ blood.

For the names were true. By this soft intoning utterance they seemed to
pass mutually into the secret rhythm of that Eternal Principle of Speech
which exists behind the spoken sound and is independent of its means of
manifestation. Their central beings, screened and limited behind their
names, knew an instant of synchronous rhythmical vibration. It was their
introduction absolute to one another, for it was an instant of naked
revelation.

"Spinrobin...."

"Miriam...."

VIII

... A great volume of sound suddenly enveloped and caught away the two
singing names, and the spell was broken. Miriam dropped her eyes;
Spinrobin looked up. It was Mr. Skale's voice upon them with a shout.

"Splendid! splendid!" he cried; "your voices, like your names, are made
for one another, in quality, pitch, accent, everything." He was
enthusiastic rather than excited; but to Spinrobin, taking part in this
astonishing performance, to which the other two alone held the key, it
all seemed too perplexing for words. The great bass crashed and boomed
for a moment about his ears; then came silence. The test, or whatever it
was, was over. It had been successful.

Mr. Skale, his face still shining with enthusiasm, turned towards him.
Miriam, equally happy, watched, her hands folded in her lap.

"My dear fellow," exclaimed the clergyman, half rising in his chair, "how
mad you must think us! How mad you must think us! I can only assure you
that when you know more, as you soon shall, you will understand the
importance of what has just taken place...."

He said a good deal more that Spinrobin did not apparently quite take in.
He was too bewildered. His ey