The moment he ceased to expect it any more, he began to think whether it must not have come from the house. He stole down the stair--to do what, he did not know. He could not go following an airy nothing all over the castle: of a great part of it he as yet knew nothing! His constructive mind had yearned after a complete idea of the building, for it was almost a passion with him to fit the outsides and insides of things together; but there were suites of rooms into which, except the earl and lady Arctura were to leave home, he could not hope to enter. It was little more than mechanically therefore that he went vaguely after the sound; and ere he was half-way down the stair, he recognized the hopelessness of the pursuit. He went on, however, to the schoolroom, where tea was waiting him.
He had returned to his room, and was sitting again at work, now reading and meditating, when, in one of the lulls of the storm, he became aware of another sound--one most unusual to his ears, for he never required any attendance in his room--that of steps coming up the stair--heavy steps, not as of one on some ordinary errand. He waited listening. The steps came nearer and nearer, and stopped at his door. A hand fumbled about upon it, found the latch, lifted it, and entered. To Donal's wonder--and dismay as well, it was the earl.
His dismay arose from his appearance: he was deadly pale, and his eyes more like those of a corpse than a man among his living fellows. Donal started to his feet.
The apparition turned its head towards him; but in its look was no atom of recognition, no acknowledgment or even perception of his presence; the sound of his rising had had merely a half-mechanical influence upon its brain. It turned away immediately, and went on to the window. There it stood, much as Donal had stood a little while before--looking out, but with the attitude of one listening rather than one trying to see. There was indeed nothing but the blackness to be seen--and nothing to be heard but the roaring of the wind, with the roaring of the great billows rolled along in it. As it stood, the time to Donal seemed long: it was but about five minutes.
Was the man out of his mind, or only a sleep-walker? How could he be asleep so early in the night?
As Donal stood doubting and wondering, once more came the musical cry out of the darkness--and immediately from the earl a response--a soft, low murmur, by degrees becoming audible, in the tone of one meditating aloud, but in a 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 depths of the castle, where he might break his neck any moment!
Interference no doubt was dangerous, but he would follow him at least a little way! He heard the steps going down the stair, and made haste after them. But ere they could have reached the bottom, the sound of them ceased; and Donal knew the earl must have left the stair at a point from which he could not follow him.
