oriel window suddenly darkened, and an hour after the lights
in the wing went out, and Maxwell Hall lay silver and grey again in the
moonlight.

The night passed on. Once Isabel awoke, and saw her windows blue and
mystical and her room full of a dim radiance from the bright night
outside. It was irresistible, and she sprang out of bed and went to the
window across the cool polished oak floor, and leaned with her elbows on
the sill, looking out at the square of lawn and the low ivied wall
beneath, and the tall trees rising beyond ashen-grey and olive-black in
the brilliant glory that poured down from almost directly overhead, for
the Paschal moon was at its height above the house.

And then suddenly the breathing silence was broken by a ripple of melody,
and another joined and another; and Isabel looked and wondered and
listened, for she had never heard before the music of the mysterious
night-flight of the larks all soaring and singing together when the rest
of the world is asleep. And she listened and wondered as the stream of
song poured down from the wonderful spaces of the sky, rising to far-off
ecstasies as the wheeling world sank yet further with its sleeping
meadows and woods beneath the whirling singers; and then the earth for a
moment turned in its sleep as Isabel listened, and the trees stirred as
one deep breath came across the woods, and a thrush murmured a note or
two beside the drive, and a rabbit suddenly awoke in the field and ran on
to the lawn and sat up and looked at the white figure at the window; and
far away from the direction of Lindfield a stag brayed.

"So longeth my soul," whispered Isabel to herself.

Then all grew still again; the trees hushed; the torrent of music, more
tumultuous as it neared the earth, suddenly ceased; and Isabel at the
window leaned further out and held her hands in the bath of light; and
spoke softly into the night:

"Oh, Lord Jesus, how kind Thou art to me!"

* * * *

Then at last the morning came, and Christ was risen beyond a doubt.

Just before the sun came up, when all the sky was luminous to meet him,
the two again passed up and round the corner, and into the little door in
the angle. There was the same shaded candle or two, for the house was yet
dark within; and they passed up and on together through the sitting-room
into the chapel where each had made a First Confession the night before,
and had together been