"Aaron!"
Aaron's own true voice answered me,--
"Where are you, Anna?"
"In the tower. Open the door, please."
"Give me the lantern," Sophie said, "whilst you open the door."
I, thoughtlessly taking the key, had left nothing by which to draw it out. Aaron worked away at it, right vigorously, but it would not yield.
"Can't you come down and push?" timidly asked Sophie, creeping round the corner, in view of tombstones.
"It's very dark inside; I can't," I said; and so Aaron went on, pulling and prying, but not one inch did the determined door yield.
Out of the darkness came an idea. I came in with the key,--why not they? and, calling loudly, I bade them watch whilst I threw it from the window. In the lantern's circle of light it went rushing down; and I'm sorry to tell that in its fall it grazed an angel's wing of marble, striking off one feather from its protecting mission above a sleeping child.
The door was opened at last; at last a circle of light came into this inverted well, and arose to me. Can you imagine, any one, I ask, who is of mortal hue and mould,--can you imagine yourself deep down in a well, such a one as those living on high lands draw their water from, holding on with weary fingers to the slimy mosses, fearing each new energy of grasping muscle is the last that Nature holds in its store for you; and then, weary almost unto death, you look up and see two human faces peering above the curbstone, see the rope curling down to you, swinging right before your grasp, and a doubt comes,--have you life enough to touch it?