On sang Diadyomene, not knowing that a power stronger than her magic, stronger than his will, kept him from her feet. On she sang, herself possessed, uttering not with her own will more than magic. What alien element underlay the spell she would deliver? what lurking revelation to be dreaded, to be desired, hid beneath? Her voice was caught back again, and yet again, to repeat the finish: 'As a singer the breath to be rendered song, As a child the life that will last so long-- As a child----' Then bell notes fell in a chime. She lifted her head; they rang, she hearkened, motionless, wordless. It was midnight, and joy for the birth of Christ thrilled the world. No spell could hold. Christian must resume the throes of death. The cold and the tide were merciful to shorten. His limbs were stone-cold and dead already, past motion, past pain. Against his side the foremost lap of the tide told. It licked and bit along his body, flanks, breast, throat, touched his cheek. Astray against his face he felt the thread of rowan. It kissed along cheek, along brow, and swung wide and away. 'Christ, Christ, ah! Christ.' He turned his head and drank of the brine, and drank and drank to slake the rage of thirst. The drawing of breath made hindrance: not for long. The last draughts he took were somewhat sharp and painful, but they quenched his thirst. He was entirely satisfied. 'We beseech, we beseech, we beseech: Lord God for my unbaptized! Dear Christ for Christian's Diadyomene! Blessed Trinity and all Saints for a nameless soul in sore need!' CHAPTER XVI Through all creation went the divine breath of renunciation. Joy for the birth of Christ rang on; and motionless, wordless, Diadyomene hearkened, released from the magic of the sea. Dawned a vision remote, but strangely distinct, of a small life comprehending two dear figures--one most dear; and thereto a small, beautiful pain responded. A tale flashed across and across, gaining coherence, giving it: the tale of a loved and lost child, long years ago lost to the sea; loved still. Perfect grew the interweaving; the substance of the two became one. Joy for the birth of Christ was abroad, thrilling all planes of existence with the divine breath of renunciation. In the soul of Diadyomene, waked from its long trance, love was alive; a finite, individual love, chief centred on one dearest to remembrance. The beautiful pain grew large, and the cold heart that the sea-life had filled and satisfied was yearning for share in another life long forgone. A small divine instinct, following ignorantly in the wake of that great celestial love that hundreds of years ago stooped to the sorrow of life, urged her to renounce the ample strengths and joys of the sea, and to satisfy a piteous want, were it by repression of energies, by eschewing full flavours of sense, by the draining of her young life. The soul of true womanhood in this child for the cherishing of her mother's waxed mature.