And then, in this moment, grief and fear and heart-break
were lost, forgotten, swept utterly away as the wailing, tender notes
were 'whelmed in the triumphant melody that pealed forth, louder, more
sublimely joyous than ever. She was back, within my arms, upon my
heart, but a greater, nobler She, mine for ever and the world all
glorious about us.
The rapture ended suddenly on a note of triumph, and Diana, leaning to
me, was looking at me through glistening tears, our hands met and
clung and never a word between us; then we glanced up to meet the
Ancient Person's keen, smiling glance and his voice was gentle when he
spoke.
"God bless you, children! Then hearing, you saw and understood? No
true love can be that knows nothing of pain, for pain ennobles love
and teaches self-sacrifice and this surely is the noblest good of all.
And now, friend Jarvis, I will endeavour to show you something of the
soul's upward pilgrimage, the working out of man's salvation as
pictured in your verse."
He turned back to the organ and from its quivering pipes rose a series
of noble chords, stately and solemn, a hymn-like measure, rolling in
awful majesty, shattered all at once by a wild confusion of screaming
discords that yet gradually resolved into a wailing melody of
passionate despair beneath which I seemed to hear the relentless tramp
of countless marching feet with, ever and anon, a far, faint echo of
that first grand and stately motive.
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