"Sing Rachel."
Rachel hesitated. "I don't know what to sing," she said.
"Sing what you sang at Southwold, on the sea. What a perfect night that was, do you remember?"
Remember! Rachel could never forget it. How often had the thought of it saddened her. Somehow things had not been just as she had hoped and expected on that moonlight evening when she and Luke had been alone on the great wide sea. She had never had him quite so absolutely to herself since that day; ever since then she had had to share him with others. No, she could not sing those words just now. They seemed sacred to that wonderful time which they had spent in the pathway of the moon.
"Not that Luke," she remonstrated.
"Well sing something else," he said, not having noticed the slight tremor in her voice. "I want to hear your voice among the trees."
"I'll sing the two last verses of your favourite hymn," she said.
"Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm,
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire,
Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire.
O still small voice of calm."
Luke did not move. He lay looking up at the green leaves above him. Then he said:
"How is it you always know exactly the right words to sing? My soul has been full of strain and stress lately. A great deal of sadness is going on among my people. I need to let the peace of God rule my heart, and to listen to 'the still small voice of calm,' and to remember that there is my wife at home praying for me."