But what a strange effect! Could this be that Anna. Callender who "would
no more ever again seem small, than the ocean?" Is this that maiden of
the "belated, gradual smile" whom the singer himself so lately named "a
profound pause?" Your eyes, fair girl, could hardly be more dilated if
they saw riot, fire, or shipwreck. Nor now could your brow show more
exaltation responsive to angels singing in the sun; nor now your frame
show more affright though soldiers were breaking in your door. Anna,
Anna! your fingers are clenched in your palms, and in your heart one
frenzy implores the singer to forbear, while another bids him sing on
though the heavens fall. Anna Callender! do you not know this? You have
dropped into a chair, you grip the corners of your desk. Now you are up
again, trembling and putting out your lights. And now you seek to
relight them, but cannot remember the place or direction of anything,
and when you have found out what you were looking for, do not know how
much time has flown, except that the song is still in its first stanza.
Are you aware that your groping hand has seized and rumpled into its
palm a long strand of slender ribbon lately unwound from your throat?

A coy tap sounds on her door and she glides to it. "Who--who?" But in
spite of her it opens to the bearer of a lamp, her sister Constance.

"Who--who--?" she mocks in soft glee. "That's the question! 'Who is
Sylvia?'"

"Don't try to come in! I--I--the floor is all strewn with matches!"

The sister's mirth vanishes: "Why, Nan! what is the matter?"

"Do-on't whisper so loud! He's right out there!"