"Resurgam!"

Had his senses deceived him? They must have deceived him. And yet that music at least had seemed startlingly near, sudden, and sweet, as though one should tread upon a harp in the grass. For the next day or two Antony could not get it out of his ears, and often, like a sweet wail through the wood, he seemed to hear the word "Resurgam."

Was Silencieux a living spirit, after all,—no mere illusion, but one of those beautiful demons of evil that do possess the souls of men?

He went and stood by Silencieux's grave. It was just as he had left it. Only an early yellow butterfly stood fanning itself on the freshly turned earth.

Was it the soul of Silencieux?

Cursing himself for a madman, he turned away, but had not gone many yards, when once more—there was that sudden strain of music and the word "Resurgam" somewhere on the wind.

This time he knew he was not mistaken, but to believe it true—O God, he must not believe it true. Reality or fancy, it was an evil thing which he had cast out of his life—and he closed his ears and fled.

Yet, though he loyally strove to quench that music in the sound of Beatrice's voice, deep in his heart he knew that the night would come when he would take his lantern and spade, wearily, as one who at length after hopeless striving obeys once more some imperious weakness—and look on the face of Silencieux again.

Too surely that night came, and, as in a dream, Antony found himself in the dark spring night hastening with lantern and spade to Silencieux's grave. It was only just to look on her face again, to see if she really lived like a vampire in the earth; and were she to be alive, he vowed to kill her where she lay—for into his life again he knew she must not come.

As he neared the whitebeam, a gust of wind blew out his lantern, and he stood in the profound darkness of the trees. While he attempted to relight it, he thought he saw a faint light at the foot of the whitebeam, as of a radiance welling out of the earth; but he dismissed it as fancy.

Then, having relit the lantern, he set the spade into the ground, and speedily removed the soil from the white face below. As he uncovered it, the wind again extinguished the lantern, and there, to his amazement and terror, was the face of Silencieux shining radiantly in the darkness. The hole in which she lay brimmed over with light, as a spring wells out of the hillside. Her face was almost transparent with brightness, and presently she spoke low, with a voice sweeter than Antony had ever heard before. It was the voice of that magic harp at the bottom of the sea, it was the voice that had told him of her lovers, the voice of hidden music that had cried "Resurgam" through the wood.

"Antony," she said, "sing me songs of little Wonder."

And, forgetting all but the magic of her voice, the ecstasy of being hers again, Antony carried her with him to the chÂlet, and setting her in her accustomed place, gazed at her with his whole soul.

"Sing me songs of little Wonder," she repeated.

"You bid me sing of little Wonder!" cried Antony, half in terror of this beautiful evil face that drew him irresistibly as the moon, "you, who took her from me!"

"Who but I should bid you sing of Wonder?" answered Silencieux. "I loved her. That was why I took her from you, that by your grief she should live for ever. There is no one but I who can give you back your little Wonder—no one but I who can give you back anything you have lost. If you love me faithfully, Antony—there is nothing you can lose but in me you will find it again."

Antony bowed his head, his heart breaking for Beatrice—but who is not powerless against his own soul?

"Listen," said Silencieux again. "Once on a time there was a beautiful girl who died, and from her grave grew a wonderful flower, which all the world came to see. 'Yet it seems a pity,' said one, 'that so beautiful a girl should have died.' 'Ah,' said a poet standing by, 'there was no other way of making the flower!'"

And again, as Antony still kept silence in his agony, Silencieux said, "Listen."

"Listen, Antony. You have hidden yourself away from me, you have put seas and lands between us, you have denied me with bitter curses, you have vowed to thrust me from your life, you have given your allegiance to the warm and pretty humanity of a day, and reviled the august cold marble of immortality. But it is all in vain. In your heart of hearts you love no human thing, you love not even yourself, you love only the eternal spirit of beauty in all things, you love only me. Me you may sacrifice, your own heart you may deny, in the weakness of human pity for human love; but, should this be, your life will be in secret broken, purposeless, and haunted, and to me at last you will come, at the end—at the end and too late. This is your own heart's voice; you know if it be true."

"It is true," moaned Antony.

"Many men and many loves are there in this world," continued Silencieux, "and each knows the way of his own love, nor shall anything turn him from it in the end. Here he may go and thither he may turn, but in the end there is only one way of joy for each, and in that way must he go or perish. Many faces are fair upon the earth, but for each man is a face fairest of all, for which, unless he win it, each must go desolate forever—"

"Face of Eternal Beauty," said Antony, "there is but one face for me for ever. It is yours."

On the morrow Beatrice saw once more that light in Antony's face which made her afraid. He had brought with him some sheets of paper on which were written the songs of little Wonder Silencieux had bidden him sing. They were songs of grief so poignant and beautiful one grew happy in listening to them, and Antony forgot all in the joy of having made them. He read them to Beatrice in an ecstasy. Her face grew sadder and sadder as he read. When he had finished she said:—

"Antony!—Silencieux has risen again."

"O Beatrice, Beatrice—I would do anything in the world for you—but I cannot live without her."