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Every day new life welled into Silencieux's face, as every day life ebbed from the face of Beatrice, surely foreseeing the coming on of what she had feared. For the love he gave to Silencieux Antony must take away from Beatrice, from whom as the days went by he grew more and more withdrawn. It was true that the long lonely days which he spent in the wood bore fruit in a remarkable productiveness.
The lights are gone out, the magic faded." "Silencieux!" But she spoke no more, and, with those lonely words in his ears, Antony came out of his dream and heard the rain falling miserably through the wood. So Antony first knew how cruel could be Silencieux to those who loved her. Her sudden silences he had grown to understand, even to love.
Then at last Silencieux said: "I am weary of the sea. Let us go to the town to the lights and the sad cries of the human waves." So they went to the town and found a room high up, where they sat at the window and watched the human lights, and listened to the human music. Never had it been so wonderful to be together. For a week Antony lived in heaven.
For the next day or two Antony could not get it out of his ears, and often, like a sweet wail through the wood, he seemed to hear the word "Resurgam." Was Silencieux a living spirit, after all, no mere illusion, but one of those beautiful demons of evil that do possess the souls of men? He went and stood by Silencieux's grave. It was just as he had left it.
She would go to meet her at night, that the light might lead her steps. So one night while Antony banqueted strangely with Silencieux, she drew her cloak around her and stole up the wood, to look a last good-bye at him as he sat laughing with his shadows. "Good-bye, Antony, good-bye," she cried. "I had but human love to give you. I surrender you to the love of the divine."
It was here that Beatrice and Wonder would often take their morning walk, Wonder, though but a little girl of four, having grown more and more of a companion to her mother, since Antony's love for Silencieux. A morning in August the two were walking hand in hand.
How could a lifeless image have power over the life of his child? And yet again, was Silencieux a lifeless image? And still again, if she were an image, was it not always to an image that humanity from the beginning had been sacrificed? Yes; perhaps if Silencieux were only an image there was all the more reason to fear her.
Inland and upland, he and Beatrice should go, ever closer to the kind heart of the land, ever nearer to the forgetful silences of the sky, till huge walls of space were between them and that harp of the sea. Nor in the whisper of leaves nor in the gloom of forests should the thought of Silencieux beset them.
Yet, though he loyally strove to quench that music in the sound of Beatrice's voice, deep in his heart he knew that the night would come when he would take his lantern and spade, wearily, as one who at length after hopeless striving obeys once more some imperious weakness and look on the face of Silencieux again.
Late one October night, Antony, alone with Silencieux, as was now again his custom, was surprised to hear footsteps coming hastily up the wood, and even more surprised at the sudden unusual appearance of Beatrice. "I am sorry to disturb you, Antony," she said, noting with a pang how the lamp had been arranged to throw a vivid light upon Silencieux, "but I want you to come down and look at Wonder.
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