Slowly she began climbing, listening, waiting, one step upward after another, following the sound. As if in a trance she moved. Below her the noise of falling water made a murmuring accompaniment to the music dropping from above—an earth-made accompaniment to heaven-sent melody, meeting and forming a perfect harmony in her heart as she climbed. Gradually the horror and the sorrow fell away from her even, as the soul shall one day shed its garment of earth, until at last she stood alone and silent near David, etherealized in the faint light to a spirit-like semblance of a woman.
With a glad pounding of his heart he sprang towards her. Scarcely conscious of the act he held out both his arms, but she did not move. She stood silently regarding him, her hands dropped at her side, then with drooping head she turned and began wearily to descend the way she had come. He followed her and took her hand. She let it lie passively in his and walked on. He wished he might feel her fingers close warmly about his own, but no, they were cold. She seemed wholly withdrawn from him, and her face bore the look of one who was walking in her sleep, yet he knew her to be awake.
"Miss Cassandra, speak to me," he begged, in quiet tones. "Don't walk away until you tell me why you came."
She seemed then to become aware that he was holding her by the hand and withdrew it, and in the faint light he thought she smiled. "It was just foolishness. You will laugh at me. I heard the music, and I thought it might be—you made it I reckon, but down there it sounded like it might be the 'Voices.' You remember how they came to Joan of Arc, like we were reading last week?" She began to walk on more hurriedly.
"I will go down with you," he said, "you thought it might be the voices? What did they say to you?"
"Oh, don't go with me. I never heed the dark."
"Won't you let me go with you? What did the flute say to you? Can't you tell me?"
She laughed a little then. "It was only foolishness. I reckon the 'Voices' never come these days. I have heard it before, but didn't know where it came from. It just seemed to drop down from heaven like, and this time it seemed some different, as if it might be the 'Voices' calling. It was pretty, suh, far away and soft—like part—of everything. My father's playing sounded sad most times, like sweet crying, but this was more like sweet laughing. I never heard anything so glad like this was, so I tried to find it. Now I know it is you who make it I won't disturb you again, suh. Good evening." She hastened away and was soon lost in the gloom.
David stood until he heard her footsteps no more, then turned and entered his cabin, his mind and heart full of her. Surely he had called her, and the sound of his call was to her like "sweet laughing." Her face and her quaint expressions went with him into his dreams.
When he hurried down to the widow's place next morning, his mind filled with plans which he meant to carry out and was sure, with the boyish certainty of his nature he could compass, he heard the voice of little Hoyle shrilly calling to old Pete: "Whoa, mule. Haw there. Haw there, mule. What ye goin' that side fer; come 'round here."