Suddenly he leaned forward; his lips parted; his eyes agleam with the inner flame that consumed him.
"Lora ... Lora, my fawn," he whispered. "Look! The gates are opening! Dear, all is well at the last. God has given me back to you. My trouble is healed. Speak to me, dear; too great is my happiness!"
No sound: no movement of the hands: no stir of the closed eyelids.
"Lora!"
It was strange. But he would be patient.
Idly he watched a small, grey snow-cloud passing low above the island.
A warm breath reached the heart of it, and set the myriad wings astir. Down, straight down above the isle and for a few fathoms beyond it, they fluttered waveringly.
The fall was like a veil suspended over Ithona: a veil so thin, so transparent, that the sky was visible through it as an azure dusk; and beneath it, the sea as a blue-flowing lawn whereover its skirts trailed; while behind it, the rising sunfire was a shimmer of amber-yellow that made every falling flake glisten like burnished gold. The wind was utterly still; the sky cloudless, but for that thin, evanishing veil of dropping gold.
The sea lay breathing in a deep calm all around the isle. But, from its heart that never slumbers, rose as of yore, and for ever, a rumour as of muffled prophesyings, a Voice of Awe, a Voice of Dread.