Morris grew weary, the effort of memory was exhausting, and after it he was glad to think of nothing. The fire flickered, the clear light of the electric lamps shone upon the hard, sixteenth-century faces of the painted angels in the ancient roof; without the wind soughed, and through it rose the constant, sullen roar of the sea.
Tired, disappointed, unhappy, and full of self-reproaches, for when the madness was not on him he knew his sin, Morris sank into a doze. Now music crept softly into his sleep; sweet, thrilling music, causing him to open his eyes and smile. It was Christmas Eve, and doubtless he heard the village waifs.
Morris looked up arousing himself to listen, and lo! there before him, unexpected and ineffable, was Stella; Stella as she appeared that night on which she had sung to him, just as she finished singing, indeed, when he stood for a while in the faint moonlight, the flame of inspiration still flickering in those dark eyes and the sweet lips drawn down a little as though she were about to weep.
The sight did not astonish him, at the moment he never imagined even then that this could be her spirit, that his long labours in a soil no man was meant to till had issued into harvest. Surely it was a dream, nothing but a dream. He felt no tremors, no cold wind stirred his hair; his heart did not stand still, nor his breath come short. Why should a man fear so beautiful a dream? Yet, vaguely enough, he wished that it might last forever, for it was sweet to see her so—as she had been. As she had been—yet, was she ever thus? Surely some wand of change had touched her. She was beautiful, but had she worn that beauty? And those eyes! Could any such have shone in the face of woman?
“Stella,” he whispered, and from roof and walls crept back the echo of his voice. He rose and went towards her. She had vanished. He returned, and there she was.
“Speak!” he muttered; “speak!” But no word came, only the lovely changeless eyes shone on and watched him.
Listen! Music seemed to float about the room, such music as he had never heard—even Stella could not make the like. The air was full of it, the night without was full of it, millions of voices took up the chant, and from far away, note by note, mighty organs and silver trumpets told its melody.
His brain reeled. In the ocean of those unimagined harmonies it was tossed like a straw upon a swirling river, tossed and overwhelmed.
Slowly, very slowly, as the straw might be sucked into the heart of a whirlpool, his soul was drawn down into blackness. It shuddered, it was afraid; this vision of a whirlpool haunted him. He could see the narrow funnel of its waters, smooth, shining like jet, unspecked by foam, solid to all appearances; but, as he was aware, alive, every atom of them, instinct with some frightful energy, the very face of force—and in the teeth of it, less than a dead leaf, himself.
Down he went, down, and still above him shone the beautiful, pitying, changeless eyes; and still round him echoed that strange, searching music. The eyes receded, the music became faint, and then—blackness.