Jane listened with an overflowing heart.
"The radiant morn hath passed away,
And spent too soon her golden store;
The shadows of departing day
Creep on once more.
"Our life is but a fading dawn,
Its glorious noon, how quickly past!
Lead us, O Christ, when all is gone,
Safe home at last.
"Where saints are clothed in spotless white,
And evening shadows never fall;
where Thou, Eternal Light of Light,
Art Lord of All."
The triumphant worship of the last line rang out into the night, and died away. Garth loosed his hands, and leaned back, with a sigh of vast content, against his wife's knees.
"Beautiful!" she said. "Beautiful! Garthie—perhaps it is because YOU sang it; and to-night;—but it seems to me the most beautiful thing I ever heard. Ah, and how appropriate for us; on this day, of all days."
"Oh, I don't know," said Garth, stretching his legs in front of him, and crossing his feet the one over the other. "I certainly feel 'Safe home at last'—not because 'all is gone'; but because I HAVE all, in having you, Jane."
Jane bent, and laid her cheek upon his head. "My own boy," she said, "you have all I have to give—all, ALL. But, darling, in those dark days which are past, all seemed gone, for us both. 'Lead us, O Christ'—It was He who led us safely through the darkness, and has brought us to this. And Garth, I love to know that He is Lord of All—Lord of our joy; Lord of our love; Lord of our lives—our wedded lives, my husband. We could not be so safely, so blissfully, each other's, were we not ONE, IN HIM. Is this true for you also, Garth?"
Garth felt for her left hand, drew it down, and laid his cheek against it; then gently twisted the wedding ring that he might kiss it all round.
"Yes, my wife," he said. "I thank God, that I can say in all things: 'Thou, Eternal Light of Light, art Lord of All.'"
A long sweet silence. Then Jane said, suddenly: "Oh, but the music, Garthie! That exquisite setting. Whose is it? And where did you hear it?"
Garth laughed again; a laugh of half-shy pleasure.