He rose from his knees, and sitting on the side of the bed gathered Mary up into his arms. He held her closely against his breast, her hair twined in his clasping fingers. Then he bent his head over the upturned face, and whispered.
"Darling," he said, "heart of my heart, wherever you are have mercy and come back to me. I can't live without you. You are my all. God will give you to me if you will come. You look so happy, but you will be happier with me, for you can't go and leave everything unfinished. Best and dearest one, I need you. Come back! Come back!"
Mary's spirit had crossed the threshold and stood looking out into the unknown, which stretched on and on into endlessness, like a sea of light ringing round the world; and in this sea there was music which seemed to be part of the light. She thought that she had been almost engulfed in a terrible storm with waves mountain-high arising over her head in a great darkness, and explosive noises of machinery loud in her ears as when Carleton took her through the water of the harbour in his hydro-aeroplane. But the noise had ceased, and the darkness was gone. All was light and peace. She was conscious that she had struggled and suffered, that she had borne a burden of unhappiness which had been too heavy for her shoulders. The burden had fallen off. She was no longer unhappy, and though her heart was empty of joy, dimly she seemed to hear an assurance that soon it would be filled to overflowing. The promise was in the music that was part of the light, and of the great sea over which she was passed. She knew that she was far above it now, and rising higher, as she had risen in the aeroplane when she had felt the wonder after the shrinking. But something which had been herself lay under the sea, down in the storm and the darkness she had left behind.
Then, suddenly, the music was disturbed. Through it she listened to a vague undertone of sorrow; and she became aware that some one was suffering as she had suffered, some one whom she had loved—some one whom she would always love. Out of the darkness a voice was calling her to come back. Indistinct and far away at first, it became clear, insistent, irresistible.
A faint shiver ran through Mary's body, and Vanno's heart leaped against her breast, as if he sent his life to warm her heart.
"Come back to me, if you loved me!" he called her.
Very slowly she opened her eyes, dazzled still with the light she had seen through the open door.
"Mary, come back and save me!" he cried to her out of the darkness.
"I am coming," she whispered, not sure if she was answering in a dream to a voice in a dream. But the light of the wondrous sea was dimmed to the light of an earthly sunset. Through it Vanno's eyes called to her as his voice had called—those eyes which had been her stars of love—and she forgot the brighter light, just seen and lost.