“Art thou Murtagh?” whispered Colum, in deep awe.
“No, I am not Murtagh,” came as the breath of vanishing song.
“What art thou?”
“I am Peace,” said the glory.
Thereupon Colum sank to his knees, sobbing with joy, for the sorrow that had been and was no more.
“Tell me, O White Peace,” he murmured, “can Murtagh hearken there under the apples, where God is?”
“God’s love is a wind that blows hitherward and hence. Speak, and thou shalt hear.”
Colum spake. “O Murtagh my brother, tell me in what way it is that I still keep God crucified upon the Cross.”
There was a sound in the cell as of the morning-laughter of children, of the singing of birds, of the sunlight streaming through the blue fields of Heaven.
Then Murtagh’s voice came out of Paradise, sweet with the sweetness: honey-sweet it was, and clothed with deep awe because of the glory.