She bowed her head to accept the last accolade of Genius—grief. She had partaken of pain—that chrism which, laid upon poetic lips, sanctifies their words to immortality, but which savours the breath they breathe with the bitterness of death. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Rossetti (how many we might name!) have partaken of that sacrament. But what matter for the Pipe, so that the world, when it has time to listen, may hear sweet singing? The world, in its way, was very good to Judith Moore. It gave her the sweet smile of its approval right royally; it gave her all its luxuries, all its praise, and this Judith did not pretend not to enjoy. But she enjoyed it as one does who drinks what he knows will kill him, yet continues the draught, that in its intoxication he may forget the doom it brings.
Judith was seen everywhere, for she availed herself of all the privileges which her genius, her beauty, her untarnished fame won for her. She was pointed out wherever she went; sometimes when a crush of carriages held her own imprisoned, she would hear a whisper from lip to lip, "Look! look! There is Judith Moore." Nothing further was needed; every one knew Judith Moore. And Judith treated the world as it deserved of her. She dressed herself beautifully for it, and smiled and sang to it, and exhibited herself to it everywhere. Everywhere, for she was striving to so tire her spirit that when she was alone it might at least be numb, if not at rest. In vain! That ardent, tender spirit was yet indomitable. The body, the slender, beautiful body it animated, might be sore aweary, but so soon as Judith was alone her spirit fled far away, back to the place of its rejoicing; back to the village in the valley, where it was always spring or summertide; back to the old rail fences with the tangled weeds about them; back to the apple blooms; back to the brown furrows where the grey birds nested; back to the lindens and the chestnuts, and there, hour after hour, her spirit held voiceless commune with that other. Her spirit well might be comforted, but Judith strained listening ears to hear one tender word, wearied her eyes searching for the semblance of a face, stretched forth trembling hands for comfort, and, overcome at last, let them fall, empty.
The opera season closed, and an incident that made some talk put the period to Judith's first American season. Judith had sung as she never sang before. Her voice seemed to transcend the limits of human capability, and become something independent of her lips, something sentient, springing ever higher and higher.
The man in whose heart she was likened to the pierced nightingale, the blinded lark, the mourning dove, the dying swan, had come to listen to her. At her last appearance there was a roar of applause, a wave of laudation that seemed as if it might carry her off her feet. There is something thrilling, inspiring, almost weird in the union of human voices, something that stirs the imagination, something that never grows old to us, for it never becomes familiar. Usually they jar and jangle across each other as children babble, each fretting for his own toy, so that we almost forget what the power of union is. In praise or blame it makes the world tremble.
She made no pretence of retiring for the encore. She made no sign to the musicians. She did not assume the pose, familiar to them, for any of her songs. They sat silent, spellbound with the audience. She stepped slowly forward, stretched forth her arms, and sang unaccompanied, what seemed an invocation to the better Ego of every soul present, a song she had been wont to sing to Andrew:
"Out from yourself!
Out from the past with its wrecks and contrition,
Out from the dull discontentment of now,
Out from the future's false-speaking ambition,
Out from yourself!
For your broken heart's rest;
For the peace which you crave;
For the end of your quest;
For the love which can save;
Come! Come to me!"
Those who heard that song never forgot it. And one man, at least, never forgot the expression upon the woman's face as she sang. Rapt as of a sibyl who conjures away an evil spirit; winning as a woman who promises all things; informed with the intensity of one who bids her will go forth to accomplish her desire—she held her last pose a moment. The house "rose at her." Even as they cheered a change overspread her face. It grew glorified, exultant, tremulously eager, as of one who feels the pinions of his soul stirring for flight—for flight to longed-for shores. With that look upon her face she fell.
* * * * * *
Far away from New York, in the silent spaces of a virgin forest, a man was lying on the snow, his gun beneath his arm ready for use. But he was keeping no lookout for game. His eyes were fixed upon an open space amid the tree tops, where a solitary star twinkled desolately. His face was thin; his eyes burned; the snows, the silence, nor the solitude could calm that throbbing at his heart, could cool the fever in his veins. He thought of Judith, and, thinking of her, loved her. It was true she had left him, left him with his kisses warm upon her lips, but—he loved her. It was hard for him to imagine a force strong enough to constrain her to go. It was difficult, having no clue, to conceive of circumstances that would justify her silent desertion, but somehow Andrew, out of the depths of his steadfast heart, found excuses for her. Sometimes the fantastic thought that she was bound in loveless marriage came to him, but he put it by. He remembered her eyes, the misgivings that had assailed her, the tender abandon of her trust in him. No, she was not married. Where was she? It was not her wish that he should know. He hoped her little feet trod pleasant paths. Oh, Judith, Judith! Then, explain it as we may, or leave it still a mystery, there came to him, faint, aëry, bodilessly, the words of a song—a song that ended in a plea, "Come! Come to me," and when it died away, Andrew Cutler sprang to his feet with a cry that echoed far between the icy tree trunks of the forest, "I come, I come." And that same night, at the same hour, at the same pulse of the hour, Judith Moore, with a look of ineffable joy upon her face, fell fainting upon the stage.
"So may love, although 'tis understood
The mere commingling of passionate breath,
Produce more than our searching witnesseth."