‘Oh, brother!’ murmured the little Pilgrim, kneeling, as if she had accompanied him all the way with her prayers, but could not now say more.

‘Then I saw again,’ he went on, not hearing her in the great force of that passion and wonder which was still in his mind, ’that vision in the air.  Wherever I turned, it was there,—­His eyes wet with pity, His countenance shining with love.  Whence came He?  What did He in that place, where love is not, where pity comes not?’

‘Friend,’ she cried, ‘to seek you there!’

Her companion bowed his head in deep humbleness and joy.  And again he lifted his great voice and intoned his song of praise.  The little Pilgrim understood it, but by fragments,—­a line that was more simple that came here and there.  And it praised the Lord that where the face of the Father was hidden; and where love was not, nor compassion, nor brother had pity on brother, nor friend knew the face of friend; and all succor was stayed, and every help forbidden,—­yet still in the depths of the darkness and in the heart of the silence, He who could not forget nor forsake was there.  The voice of the singer was like that of one of the great angels, and many of the inhabitants of the blessed country began to appear, gathering in crowds to hear this great music, as the little sister thought; and she herself listened with all her heart, wondering and seeing on the faces of those dear friends whom she did not know an expectation and a hope which were strange to her, though she could always understand their love and their joy.

But in the middle of this great song there came again another sound to her ear,—­a sound which pierced through the music like lightning through the sky, though it was but the cry of one distraught and fainting; a cry out of the depths not even seeking help, a cry of distress too terrible to be borne.  Though it was scarcely louder than a sigh, she heard it through all the music, and turned and flew to the edge of the precipice whence it came.  And immediately the darkness seemed to move as with a pulse in a great throb, and something came through the wind with a rush, as if part of the mountain had fallen—­and lo! at her feet lay one who had flung himself forward, his arms stretched out, his face to the ground, as if he had seized and grasped in an agony the very soil.  He lay there, half in the light and half in the shadow, gripping the rocks with his hands, burrowing into the cool herbage above and the mountain flowers; clinging, catching hold, despairing, yet seizing everything he could grasp,—­the tender grass, the rolling stones.  The little Pilgrim flung herself down upon her knees by his side, and grasped his arm to help, and cried aloud for aid; and the song of the singer ceased, and there was silence for a moment, so that the breath of the fugitive could be heard panting, and his strong struggle to drag himself altogether out of that abyss of darkness below.  She thought