Mr. Skale dropped his fruit knife and uttered a cry, but a cry of so peculiar a character that Spinrobin thought for a moment he was about to burst into song.  At the same instant he stood up, and his chair fell backwards with a crash upon the floor.  Spinrobin stood up too.  He asserts always that he was lifted up.  He recognized no conscious effort of his own.  It was at this point, moreover, that Miriam, pale as linen, yet uttering no sound and fully mistress of herself, left her side of the table and ran round swiftly to the protection of her lover.

She came close up.  “Spinny,” she said, “it’s come!”

Thus all three were standing round that dinner table on the verge of some very vigorous action not yet disclosed, as people, vigilant and alert, stand up at a cry of fire, when the door from the passage opened noisily and in rushed Mrs. Mawle, surrounded by an atmosphere of light such as might come from a furnace door suddenly thrown wide in some dark foundry.  Only the light was not steady; it was whirling.

She ran across the floor as though dancing—­the dancing of a child—­propelled, it seemed, by an irresistible drive of force behind; while with her through the opened door came a roaring volume of sound that was terrible as Niagara let loose, yet at the same time exquisitely sweet, as birds or children singing.  Upon these two incongruous qualities Spinrobin always insists.

“The deaf shall hear—!” came sharply from the clergyman’s lips, the sentence uncompleted, for the housekeeper cut him short.

“They’re out!” she cried with a loud, half-frightened jubilance; “Mr. Skale’s prisoners are bursting their way about the house.  And one of them,” she added with a scream of joy and terror mingled, “is in my throat...!”

If the odd phrase she made use of stuck vividly in Spinrobin’s memory, the appearance she presented impressed him even more.  For her face was shining and alight, radiant as when Skale had called her true 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.