A distant clock struck ONE! with a deep clang that echoed throughout the house. I shuddered. So short a time had elapsed since Zara had been alive and well; now, I could not bear to think that she was gone from me for ever. For ever, did I say? No, not for ever—not so long as love exists—love that shall bring us together again in that far-off Sphere where—-
Hush! what was that? The sound of the organ? I looked around me in startled wonderment. There was no one seated at the instrument; it was shut close. The lights on the altar and round the bier burnt steadily; the motionless figure of the priest before the tabernacle; the praying servants of the household—all was unchanged. But certainly a flood of music rolled grandly on the ear—music that drowned for a moment the howling noise of the battering wind. I rose softly, and touched one of the kneeling domestics on the shoulder.
"Did you hear the organ?" I said.
The woman looked up at me with tearful, alarmed eyes.
"No, mademoiselle."
I paused, listening. The music grew louder and louder, and surged round me in waves of melody. Evidently no one in the chapel heard it but myself. I looked about for Heliobas, but he had not entered. He was most probably in his study, whither he had retired to grieve in secret when we had borne Zara's body to its present couch of dreamless sleep.
These sounds were meant for me alone, then? I waited, and the music gradually died away; and as I resumed my kneeling position by the bier all was again silence, save for the unabated raging of the storm.
A strange calmness now fell on my spirits. Some invisible hand seemed to hold me still and tearless. Zara was dead. I realized it now. I began to consider that she must have known her fate beforehand. This was what she had meant when she said she was going on a journey. The more I thought of this the quieter I became, and I hid my face in my hands and prayed earnestly.
A touch roused me—an imperative, burning touch. An airy brightness, like a light cloud with sunshine falling through it, hovered above Zara's bier! I gazed breathlessly; I could not move my lips to utter a sound. A face looked at me—a face angelically beautiful! It smiled. I stretched out my hands; I struggled for speech, and managed to whisper:
"Zara, Zara! you have come back!"