All day a concert of birds had filled the upper chambers of the trees with
silver pipings, but now not a bird voice spoke. There was silence, except
for a faint mysterious stirring, as of dryads beginning to wake and dress
for their night-flitting when a moonbeam should tap on their shut doors.
The lilac haze floated up from the ground, and slowly, very slowly, turned
to silver touched with rose. Like a veil it spread among the trees
tangling among their sharp branches, its lacy mesh tearing, to leave dark
jagged holes. But unseen hands mended the rent and wove the veil into a
curtain that screened the distance and was pinned up with stars.
The whole forest rustled with mystery in the strange pulsing luminance
that was neither sunset nor moonrise, but the memory of one, and a hope of
the other--the kind of light that a blind man might see in dreams.
"Now--Angela," Nick half whispered, in awe at the name on his lips, the
name of a goddess uttered by a mortal. (Extra hazard!--extra hazard!) At
last he laid his hand on hers, warm and close, and her lips opened to
break the spell, when a voice called to Nick in the distance:
"Nick! Nick Hilliard, where are you?"
Angela drew away quickly, the spell broken indeed.
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