I have sometimes wondered whether a great poet ever takes up his own volume, and recalls the time in which each song was born. The song lives on, fresh and sweet as when it first started into life; but only the writer can see the withered hopes—the poor faded dreams and worn-out associations that cling to every line. So many dead things are hanging round those living verses that I fancy the author can hardly sing them over to himself without tears. And as I sat quietly listening for the first words of my love-song, written in the spring, and touched with springtide hope and confidence, my heart was aching for the happier past.
But it was not the prelude to my song that my husband began to play. As he swept the strings, there came again that sweet, strange melody which always soothed us, even while it baffled all attempts to catch its meaning.
Over and over he played that soft air, till the last trace of vexation faded out of his face; and his eyes, with a musing look in them, sought mine inquiringly. Again the music hushed all my troubled thoughts, as a nurse stills the fretful wailing of a child; again it seemed to murmur faintly of a coming time of peace and joy and rest.
"Shall I ever know where I learnt that air?" asked Ronald at last, letting the guitar rest on his knee. "Louie, I will tell you a curious thing. One night I was dining with some friends of Greystock's; they had a guitar in the room, and I took it up and tried to play our mysterious melody. But it would not come; and had to give up the attempt to recall it. What do you think of that, little woman?"
"I don't know what to think, Ronald," I replied; "but I do know that there is something in the air that gives me new courage and comforts me as nothing else does. Perhaps it is a message from some unknown spirit friend. Who can tell?"
And he echoed thoughtfully, "Who can tell?"
[CHAPTER XIII.]
ANGUISH.