“Sing! sing, brothers, sisters, little tender ones in the nest!  Sing, for the morning is come, and God has made us another day.  Sing! for praise is sweet, and our sweetest notes must show it forth.  Song is the voice that God has given us to tell forth His goodness, to speak gladly of the wondrous things He hath made.  Sing, brothers and sisters! be joyful, be joyful in the Lord! all sorrow and darkness is gone away, away, and light is here, and morning, and the world wakes with us to gladness and the new day.  Sing, and let your songs be all of joy, joy, lest there be in the wood any sorrowing creature, who might go sadly through the day for want of a voice of cheer, to tell him that God is love, is love.  Wake from thy dream, sad heart, if the friendly wood hold such an one!  Sorrow is night, and night is good, for rest, and for seeing of many stars, and for coolness and sweet odours; but now awake, awake, for the day is here, and the sun arises in his might,—­the sun, whose name is joy, is joy, and, whose voice is praise.  Sing, sing, and praise the Lord!”

So the bird sang, praising God, and the other birds, from tree and shrub, answered as best they might, each with his song of praise; and the man, lying motionless beneath the great tree, heard, and listened, and understood.

Still he lay there, with wide open eyes, while the golden morning broke over him, and the light came sifting down, through the leaves, checkering all the ground with gold.  The wood now glowed with colour, russet and green and brown, wine-like red of the tree-trunks where the sun struck aslant on them, soft yellow greens where the young ferns uncurled their downy heads.  The air was sweet, sweet, with the smell of morning; was the whole world new since last night?

Suddenly from the road near by (for he had gone round in a circle, and the wooded hollow where he lay was out of sight but not out of hearing of the country road which skirted the woods for many miles), from the road near by came the sound of voices,—­men’s voices, which fell strange and harsh on his ears, open for the first time to the music of the world, and still ringing with the morning hymn of joy.  What were these harsh voices saying?

“They think she’ll live now?”

“Yes, she’ll pull through, unless she frets herself bad again about Jacques.  Nobody’d heerd a word of him when I come away.”

“Been out all night, has he?”

“Yes! went away without saying anything to her or anybody, far as I can make out.  Been gone since yesterday afternoon, and some say—­” The voices died away, and then the footsteps, and silence fell once more.

CHAPTER XI.

VITA NUOVA.

De Arthenay never knew how he reached home that day.  The spot where he had been lying was several miles from the white cottage, yet he was conscious of no time, no distance.  It seemed one burning moment, a moment never to be forgotten while he lived, till he found himself at the foot of the outer stairway, the stair that led to the attic.  She might still be living, and he would not go to her without the thing she craved, the thing which could speak to her in the voice she understood.