Alas! My heart, to its surprise,
Has learned to look; and now it sighs
For you!”
She became conscious of somebody near, as she ended. She turned and saw Murtagh Skeel at her 324 elbow—saw his agitated, ashen face—looked beyond him and discovered other people gathered in the tinted light beyond, listening; then she lifted her clear, still gaze again to the white-faced man beside her, and saw his shaken soul staring at her through the dark windows of his eyes.
“Where did you learn it?” he asked with a futile effort at that control so difficult for any Celt to grasp where the heart is involved.
“The song I sang? ‘Blue Eyes’?” she inquired.
“Yes—that.”
“I have the manuscript of the composer.”
“Could you tell me where you got it—and—and who wrote those words you sang?”
“The manuscript came to me from my mother.... She wrote it.... I think you knew her.”