piano! He went over to it and bent down.

"Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo! Go forth upon thy
journey, Christian soul! Go from this world!"

So she loved "Gerontius," that intimate musical expression of the wonder
and the strangeness of the Soul! He did not remember he had told her
that he loved it. He stood gazing at the score. The light wind came in
from the river far down below, and the curtains made a faint sound as
they moved. The canaries chirped intermittently. But Nigel heard the
voice of a priest by the side of one who was dying. And as he looked at
the chords supporting the notes on which the priest bade the soul of the
man return to its Maker, he seemed to hear them, as he had heard them,
played by a great orchestra; to feel the mysterious, the terrible, yet
beautiful act of dissolution.

He started. He had launched himself into space with the soul. Now,
abruptly, he was tethered to earth in the body. Had he not heard the
murmur of a dress announcing the coming of its wearer? He looked towards
the second door of the room, which opened probably into a bedroom. It
was shut, and remained shut. He came away from the piano. What books
was she fond of reading! Emerson--optimism in boxing-gloves;
Maspero--she was interested, then, in things Egyptian. "Faust"--De
Maupassant--D'Annunzio--Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter." He took this
last book, which was small and bound in white, into his hand. He had
known it once. He had read it long ago. Now he opened it, glanced
quickly through its pages. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale--suddenly he
remembered the story, the sin of the flesh, the scarlet letter that
branded the sin upon the woman's breast while the man went unpunished.