When he retired to rest that night he was fully and firmly prepared to die.  With this expectation upon him he was nevertheless happy and tranquil.  The line—­“Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings” haunted him, and he repeated it over and over again without knowing why.  Wings! the brilliant shafts of radiance that part angels from mortals,—­wings, that, after all, are not really wings, but lambent rays of living lightning, of which neither painter nor poet has any true conception, . . long, dazzling rays such as encircled God’s maiden, Edris, with an arch of roseate effulgence, so that the very air was sunset-colored in the splendor of her presence!  How if she were a wingless angel,—­ made woman?

“Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings!” And with the name of his angel-love upon his lips he closed his eyes and sank into a deep and dreamless slumber.

CHAPTER XL.

In the cathedral.

A booming, thunderous, yet mellow sound! a grand, solemn, sonorous swing of full and weighty rhythm, striking the air with deep, slowly measured resonance like the rolling of close cannon!  Awake, all ye people!—­Awake to prayer and praise! for the Night is past and sweet Morning reddens in the east, ... another Day is born,—­a day in which to win God’s grace and pardon,—­another wonder of Light, Movement, Creation, Beauty, Love!  Awake, awake!  Be glad and grateful for the present joy of life,—­this life, dear harbinger of life to come! open your eyes, ye drowsy mortals, to the divine blue of the beneficent sky, the golden beams of the sun, the color of flowers, the foliage of trees, the flash of sparkling waters!—­ open your ears to the singing of birds, the whispering of winds, the gay ripple of children’s laughter, the soft murmurs of home affection,—­for all these things are freely bestowed upon you with each breaking dawn, and will you offer unto God no thanksgiving?—­ Awake!  Awake! the Voice you have yourselves set in your high Cathedral towers reproaches your lack of love with its iron tongue, and summons you all to worship Him the Ever-Glorious, through whose mercy alone you live!

To and fro,—­to and fro,—­gravely persistent, sublimely eloquent, the huge, sustained, and heavy monotone went thudding through the stillness,—­till, startled from his profound sleep by such loud, lofty, and incessant clangor, Alwyn turned on his pillow and listened, half-aroused, half-bewildered,—­then, remembering where he was, he understood; it was the great Bell of the Dom pealing forth its first summons to the earliest Mass.  He lay quiet for a little while, dreamily counting the number of reverberations each separate stroke sent quivering on the air,—­but presently, finding it impossible to sleep again, he got up, and drawing aside the curtain looked out of the window of his room, which fronted on the Platz.  Though it was not yet six o’clock, the city was