"You shall have it," I said gently, "and very soon. We shall carry you now into comfort, safety. You shall have no pain. Another moment and——"
"Music," she repeated, interrupting, "music as of long ago."
It was terrible. I said such stupid things. My mind seemed frozen.
"I would hear music," she whispered, "before I go again."
"Marion, you shall," I stammered. "Beethoven, Schumann,—what would please you most? You shall have all."
"Yes, play to me. But those names"—she shook her head—"I do not know."
I remember that my face was streaming, my hands so hot that her head seemed more than I could hold. I shifted my knees so that she might lie more easily a little.
"God's music!" she cried aloud with startling abruptness; then, lowering her voice again and smiling sadly as though something came back to her that she would fain forget, she added slowly, with something of mournful emphasis:
"I was a singer ..."
As though a flash of light had passed, some inner darkness was cleft asunder in me. Some heaviness shifted from my brain. It seemed the years, the centuries, turned over like a wind-blown page. And out of some hidden inmost part of me involuntary words rose instantly: