could see
him, see Belus, then all would be well. Across the stair she wavered, a
wraith blown across the gulf of time. She grasped at the cold knob of
the door--gripped but could not turn it, for it was locked. Zora fell to
her knees, her heart weeping like the eyes of sorrow. Oh! for one firm,
clangorous chord struck by Belus; it would be as wine to the wounded.
Zora crawled to the other door, perhaps--! It was not locked, and slowly
she opened it and peered out upon the stage, the auditorium.

The humming of the harps ceased and the chaplet of iron that bound her
brow relaxed. The house was full of faces, pink human faces, the faces
of women, and as these faces rose tier after tier, terrifying terraces
of heads, Zora recalled the first council of the Angel of Light;
Lucifer's council sung of by Milton and mezzo-tinted by John Martin. The
faces were drained of expression, but in the rows near by she saw
staring eyes. Belus--what was he doing?

He sat at the piano and over its keyboard his long, ghost-like fingers
moved with febrile velocity. But no music reached her ears. Instead she
saw suspended above him the soul of Belus. It was like a coat of many
colors. It glistened with the subtle hues of a flying fish; and it swam
in the air with passionate flashes of fire. This soul that wriggled and
leapt, this burning coal that blistered the hearts of his audience, was
it truly the soul of her husband? As the multitude rose in cadenced
waves of emotion, the soul seemed to shrink, to become more remote. Then
leaf by leaf it dropped its petals until only an incandescent core was
left. And this, too, paled and died into numb nothingness. Where was the
soul of Belus? What was the soul of Belus? A bit of carbon lighted by
the world's applause? A trick-nest of boxes each smaller than the other,
with black emptiness at the end? A musical mirage of the world?

Belus was bowing. Then she saw the faces ravished with delight, the
swaying of crazy people. They had heard--but she alone knew the
secret....

III

Belus shook Zora's shoulders when he returned from the concert. "Why,
your hair is wet; you must have been asleep on the balcony in the rain,"
he irritably fingered in the deaf code. Still possessed by the
melodious terror of her dream, the rare audible dream of one born to
silence, she arose from her chair and waved him a gentle good-night. He
stared moodily after her and rang for the servant....

The hearts of some w