The glory paled into a mellow twilight. The enchanting picture faded, but the essence of its beauty changed into a heart-melody of softened sacred joy. What but music could speak in this hallowed moment?
Kate's very soul would utter itself. She went to the piano as in a dream. Soft, low notes, faint and sweet, breathed of tender questionings and tremulous doubts; then a higher, more triumphant strain of victory swelled the notes that lingered but a moment, ere a tone of sadness and regret struck the keys, whispering of sacred duty and solemn responsibility.... Again the music changed. Now peace and joy thrilled and rippled through the melodious chords....
Dearer than ever was the friendship thus cemented. They had been caught up to heaven, as it were, and that which had been bound on earth was now bound in heaven.
"Mystical more than magical, is the communing of soul with soul, both looking heavenward. Here, properly, soul first speaks with soul; for only in looking heavenward, take it in what sense you may, not looking earthward, does what we can call union, mutual love, society, begin to be possible."
They sat till late into the night, discussing and considering all phases of life and its problems.
Kate read Mrs. Hayden's letter, which in the agitation and excitement of the first part of the evening she had quite forgotten. Because of their deep earnestness they were well prepared to catch the healing mood. This experience seemed indeed the shower that most opened the blossom of understanding, and ere they slept, each had taken some poor suffering mortal into her care as a patient. The blessings they had received were already being passed to the waiting neighbor.
It is the deep, unselfish God-love that takes the world in its embrace. To perceive, feel, live the divine Love, is to have broken the old shell of selfishness, when we may begin to send the tender rootlets of being into the ready soil of the universe.
CHAPTER XXXII.
"The power to bind and loose to Truth is given!
The mouth that speaks it is the mouth of Heaven.
The power, which in a sense belongs to none,
Thus understood belongs to every one."
—Abraham Coles.