He shook his head. “I would rather not take anything to make me sleep, Ninon. And to-night I would not sleep, if I could. But I will lie down here a little while; for I am tired, now I think of it.”
He threw himself on the sofa, and she placed a screen before him, and closed the window near his head, so that even the soft plashing of the fountain was shut out, and the small notes of birds that twittered in the great pine-tree in the garden. And after a little while, finding him still restless, she went to the piano, and sang how God sent Elias to reassure and comfort a doubting and tempted soul. The notes flowed with a soothing murmur from under her fingers, and her voice, no longer the brilliant, ringing tones he had taken such pride in, was so low it might be a spirit singing:
“Tell him that his very longing
Is itself an answering cry;
That his prayer, ‘Come, gracious Alla!’
Is my answer, ‘Here am I!’
Every inmost aspiration
Is God's angel undefiled;
And in every 'O my Father!’
Slumbers deep a ‘Here, my child!’ ”