And I, standing alone upon the stairs, felt
something unutterably strange within me—the influence of that last look, perhaps still
vibrating, like an expiring sunbeam, a dying
tone. Something in her eyes had rekindled into
life something long burned out within my
heart—the ashes of a Faith entombed as in a
sepulchral um. . . . Yet only a moment; and
the phantom flame sank back into its ashes;
and I was in the sunlight again, iron of purpose as Pharaoh after the death of his first-born. It was only a dead emotion, warmed to
resurrection by the sunshine of a woman's eyes.
. . . Nevertheless, I fancy that when the Ringer is preparing to ring for me,—and the great darkness deepens all about me,—when sounds sink to their whispers and questions must remain eternally unanswered,—when memory is fading out into the infinite blackness, and those strange dreams that precurse the final dissolution marshal their illusions before me,—I fancy that I might hear again the whisper of a black robe, and feel a hand, light as frost, held out to me with the sweet questioning—"Come! You are not afraid?"
