“At any rate, the omen fulfilled itself,” answered Morris, with a sigh, “and she, too, died with the song upon her lips, though I do not think that it had anything to do with these things, which were fated to befall.”
“Well,” said the clergyman, “the fate is fulfilled now, and the song will never be sung again. She was the last of her race, and it was a law among them that neither words nor music should ever be written down.”
When such old tales and legends were exhausted, and, outside the immediate object of their search, some of them were of great interest to a man who, like Morris, had knowledge of Norse literature, and was delighted to discover in Mr. Fregelius a scholar acquainted with the original tongues in which they were written, these companions fell back upon other matters. But all of them had to do with Stella. One night the clergyman read some letters written by her as a child from Denmark. On another he produced certain dolls which she had dressed at the same period of her life in the costume of the peasants of that country. On a third he repeated a piece of rather indifferent poetry composed by her when she was a girl of sixteen. Its strange title was, “The Resurrection of Dead Roses.” It told how in its author’s fancy the flowers which were cut and cast away on earth bloomed again in heaven, never to wither more; a pretty allegory, but treated in a childish fashion.
Thus, then, from time to time, as occasion offered, did this strange pair celebrate the rites they thought so harmless, and upon the altar of memory make offerings to their dead.
CHAPTER XX.
STELLA’S DIARY
It seems to be a law of life that nothing can stand completely still and changeless. All must vary, must progress or retrograde; the very rocks in the bowels of the earth undergo organic alterations, while the eternal hills that cover them increase or are worn away. Much more is this obvious in the case of ephemeral man, of his thoughts, his works, and everything wherewith he has to do, he who within the period of a few short years is doomed to appear, wax, wane, and vanish.
Even the conversations of Mr. Fregelius and Morris were subject to the working of this universal rule; and in obedience to it must travel towards a climax, either of fruition, however unexpected, or, their purpose served, whatever it may have been, to decay and death, for lack of food upon which to live and flourish. The tiniest groups of impulses or incidents have their goal as sure and as appointed as that of the cluster of vast globes which form a constellation. Between them the principal distinction seems to be one of size, and at present we are not in a position to say which may be the most important, the issue of the smallest of unrecorded causes, or of the travelling of the great worlds. The destiny of a single human soul shaped or directed by the one, for aught we know, may be of more weight and value than that of a multitude of hoary universes naked of life and spirit. Or perhaps to the Eye that sees and judges the difference is nothing.
Thus even these semi-secret interviews when two men met to talk over the details of a lost life with which, however profoundly it may have influenced them in the past, they appeared, so far as this world is concerned, to have nothing more to do, were destined to affect the future of one of them in a fashion that could scarcely have been foreseen. This became apparent, or put itself in the way of becoming apparent, when on a certain evening Morris found Mr. Fregelius seated in the rectory dining-room, and by his side a little pile of manuscript volumes bound in shabby cloth.
“What are those?” asked Morris. “Her translation of the Saga of the Cave Outlaws?”
“No, Morris,” answered Mr. Fregelius—he called him Morris when they were alone—“of course not. Don’t you remember that they were bound in red?” he added reproachfully, “and that we did them up to send to the publisher last week?”