"No!" he declared. "Not after you have sung it. Your voice to me is
infinitely sweeter than any that the world of other days ever so much
as dreamed of!"
He bent above her, caressed her hair and kissed her; and for a little
while they both forgot their music. But soon the girl recalled him to
the work in hand.
"Come, Allan, there's so much to do!"
"I know. Well now--let's see, what next?"
He paused, a new thought in his eyes.
"Beta!"
"Well?"
"You don't find Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March,' do you? Look, dearest,
see if you can find it. Perhaps it may be there. If so--"
She eyed him, her gaze widening.
"You mean?"
He nodded.
"Just so! Perhaps, after all, you and I can--"
"Oh, come and help me look for it, Allan!" she cried enthusiastic as a
child in the joy of his new inspiration. "If we only _could_ find it,
wouldn't that be glorious?"
Eagerly they searched together.
"'Ich Grolle Nicht,' by Schumann, no," Stern commented, as one by one
they examined the records. "'Ave Maria,' Arcadelt-Liszt--no, though
it's magnificent. That's the one you sing best of all, Beta. How often
you've sung it to me! Remember, at the bungalow, how I used to lay my
head in your lap while you played with my Samsonesque locks and sang
me to sleep? Let's see--Brahms's 'Wiegenlied.' Cradle-song, eh? A
little premature; that's coming later. Eh? Found it, by Jove! Here we
are, the March itself, so help me! Shall I play it now?"
"Not yet, Allan. Here, see what _I've_ found!"
She handed him a record as they sat there together in a broad ribbon
of mid-morning sunlight that flooded down through one of the
clearstory windows.
"'The Form of the Solemnization of Matrimony, by Bishop Gibson,'" he
read. And silence fell, and for a long minute their eyes met.
"Beatrice!"
"I know; I understand! So, after all, these words--"
"Shall be spoken, O my love! Out of the dead past a voice shall speak
to us and we shall hear! Beatrice, the words your mother heard, my
mother heard, we shall hear, too. Come, Beatrice, for now the time is
at hand!"
She fell a trembling, and for a moment could not speak. Her eyes grew
veiled in tears, but through them he saw a bright smile break, like
sunlight after summer showers.
She stood up and held out her hand to him.
"My Allan!"
In his arms he caught her.
"At last!" he whispered. "Oh, at last!"
When the majesty and beauty of the immortal
marriage hymn climbed the high vaults of the cathedral, waking the
echoes of the vacant spaces, and when it rolled, pealing triumphantly,
she leaned her head upon his breast and, trembling, clung to him.
With his arm he clasped her; he leaned above her, shrouding her in his
love as in an everlasting benison. And through their souls thrilled
wonder, awe and passion, and life held another meaning and another
mystery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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