e name weeks
before. Flashes of flame-like beauty ran about the eyes and mouth; and
she looked eighteen--eternally eighteen--with a youth that was permanent
and unchanging. Moreover, not only was hearing restored to her, but her
left arm, withered for years, was in the act of pointing to the ceiling,
instinct with vigorous muscular life. Her whole presentment was
splendid, intense--redeemed.

"The deaf hear!" repeated Skale in a shout, and was across the room with
the impetus of a released projectile. "The Letters are out and alive! To
your appointed places! The syllable has caught us! Quick, quick! If you
love your soul and truth ... fly!"

Deafening thunders rushed and crashed and blew about the room,
interpenetrated everywhere at the same time by that searching strain of
sweetness Spinrobin had first noticed. The sense of life, running free
and abundant, was very remarkable. The same moment he found his hand
clasped, and felt himself torn along by the side of the rushing clergyman
into the hall. Behind them "danced" Mrs. Mawle, her cap awry, her apron
flying, her elastic-side boots taking the light, dancing step of youth.
With quick, gliding tread Miriam, still silent, was at his heels. He
remembers her delicate, strange perfume reaching him faintly through all
the incredible turmoil of that impetuous exit.

In the hall the roar increased terrifically about his ears. Skale, in his
biggest booming voice, was uttering the names of Hebrew
"angels"--invoking forces, that is, to his help; and behind him Mrs.
Mawle was singing--singing fragments apparently of the "note" she had to
utter, as well as fragments of her own "true name" thus magically
recovered. Her restored arm gyrated furiously, her tripping youth spelt
witchery. Yet the whole madness of the scene came to Spinrobin with a
freezing wind of terror; for about it was a lawless, audacious blasphemy,
that must surely win for itself a quite appalling punishment....

Yet nothing happened at once--nothing destructive, at least. Skale
and the housekeeper, he saw, were hurriedly robing themselves in the
red and yellow surplices that hung from nails in the hall, and the
instinct to laugh at the sight was utterly overwhelmed when he remembered
that these were the colors which were used for safety in their respective
"rooms." ... It was a scene of wild confusion and bewilderment which the
memory refuses to reproduce coherently. In his own throat already began a
passiona