“‘Take me to the grating,’ she entreated. ‘I would see them pray.’
“I wondered, for this had ever been the bitterest hour to her. But because I never failed to please her in what I could, I took her there. It was just at the time when the sulphur fumes were rising and they all stood looking in hopeless expectation toward the fast-barred doors. She leant against the grating like one too weak to stand alone. But suddenly she broke out into the sweetest song the ear of Spirit ever heard. I listened in surprise and admiration, as never before had she sung a note. Then, looking down below, scanning the gloomy columns, I saw amongst the mass one upturned face. ’Twas that of a man whose prison term expired that night. Next day he returned to earth to stand another trial, because with great faults unchecked there yet was that within his nature which preponderated to make him still unfit for hell. And he fell like some worn traveller towards the altar, and the last weary sigh escaped his lips, and fled trembling even till it touched and kissed those notes of purity that thrilled from her.” Here Vestasian laughed, more softly than before.
“I found myself a dupe again, for the tired spirit, now reft of everything, even hell’s punishment, ascended through the bars to her who called it. And as the half-unconscious fragment lay pressed to her bosom she turned to me.
“‘You may take me back,’ she said, with the contentment of a little child. So I took her. And there upon the bed she kissed and fondled this lost soul, and wrapped it in her own pure robe, and then she kissed me too, and with eyes shining mistily, still fixed on me, she passed away, taking it with her.”
He paused, but soon continued:—
“So I lost my wife, and lost my prisoner, whom she carried to the earth and left there, endowed from birth with every spiritual grace, even from hell’s portal. And when she had gone I wandered about disconsolate, missing her everywhere. When I learnt no tidings of her I followed to the gates of Heaven and entered. My shadow fell across the threshold, for I think the sun was slanting from the hills, and as I noticed it I—smiled. ‘They will regard me as a stranger,’ I thought, but still I strode on. At last I came to where her father lived, and saw her mother spinning by the door.
“‘I have come to seek my wife,’ I said. At this she rose and led me to the house and went through it to an upper chamber. It was all bowered in rosy light, and sweet birds carolled at the open windows, for it was summer time. There she lay upon a silken couch, sleeping like some pure flower-bell in hazy sunshine. By her side, upon the pillow, lay a little withered flower I had given her, the only store she had brought from my vast palace—and it was dead.
“‘She will stay here for many days, and then needs care and nourishing,’ her mother observed. ‘When she is strong and well again she will return to you.’
“With what gratitude I could I thanked her, and kissed my winning wife and went away. Since then, like Proserpine of old, she has come to me and gone. And ever as she goes, in that last gasping hour of pain, I take her to the grating and she sings. Every time some dying soul responds and she is happy, and will make believe that this one is my child and her own. And because from her lips these words seem sweet I never question it, but let her have her way; and if I suffer, I suffer as best I may, in silence like the rest.”
We had stood still beside the lake, and still continued standing, watching the rippling moonbeams on the water. After a slight pause he moved along.