Always to the last it was the little white hand in the blue pane which most fascinated the boy. His wandering fancy would lose itself among the cluster of leaves, as in an antique forest; would find in the glowing fruit a very garden of Hesperus, sweet with nightingales and the warm scent of flowers; would endow with a hundred characters the faces peering from that arras of bright hues: but it was to the hand he for ever returned, its beauty, its severed mystery. “I should dearly like to learn to whom it belonged,” he would say. “But this I know very well--if I could only reach it, it would help me up and away. It is the boy Christ’s, I think.” It was on a dark midsummer morning, chill and stormy, that the end came. There had been signs, and in their hearts they were prepared. The father sat by his child’s pillow, holding one of the frail hands in his, the woman, dry-eyed and silent, busied herself noiselessly among the shadows; near the foot of the bed sat the musician, his harp before him, touching little more than a melodious murmur from its strings. He faced the casement, which, because of the wind, had been close shut. Perhaps it was the drugged stillness of the room, the spell wrought upon his brain by the soft “woven paces” of the chords his fingers trod; perhaps he really dreamt; but this is what seemed to happen before his eyes. He was gazing, unconscious that he was gazing, on the window, when he saw the shadow of a dove moving on the sill outside. It dipped and strutted, curtseying back and forth, as if restless or impatient; and as it hurried, now this way now that, of a sudden the noise of the wind ceased utterly, and a flood of sunlight broke upon the window. And in that same moment the player noticed a little white hand at the latch, and the casement swung noiselessly open. There was a sigh as of wings--within, without--and his fingers stopped on a broken chord. And as he stared, dazzled, incredulous, he heard a quick rustle behind him, and a startled cry: “My God! He’s gone!” He rose, he turned, half stupefied, and saw the father on his feet, bending with an agonized expression over the face on the pillow. It was quite still; a ray of sunlight touched it; a smile of the most rapturous peace was on its lips. In a spasm of emotion he caught the poor man’s hand in one of his, and with the other pointed mutely to the open window. The physician, giving vent to his tears, leaned himself upon his shoulder. “’Twas thy music,” he said, “broke his prison and freed his soul.” “’Twas thy unselfish love,” said Bannister, “freed the music.” The woman, her stern face all softened and agitated, went to close the casement. “Nay, dame,” said the father--“let be; he cannot take cold now. To think he is seeing the blue sky and the white clouds for the first time!”