"For the whole world shined with clear light, and none were hindered
in their labour:
"Over them only was spread an heavy night, an image of that darkness
which should afterward receive them: but yet were they unto
themselves more grievous than the darkness."
He had read so much, and stopped to think a little; for through the
incongruity of it, which he did not doubt arose from poverty of
imagination in the translator, rendering him unable to see what the
poet meant, ran yet an indubitable vein of awful truth, whether
fully intended by the writer or not mattered little to such a reader
as Donal--when, lifting his eyes, he saw lady Arctura standing
before him with a strange listening look. A spell seemed upon her;
her face was white, her lips white and a little parted.
Attracted, as she was about to pass him, by the sound of what was
none the less like the Bible from the solemn crooning way in which
Donal read it to the congregation of his listening thoughts, yet was
certainly not the Bible, she was presently fascinated by the vague
terror of what she heard, and stood absorbed: without much
originative power, she had an imagination prompt and delicate and
strong in response.
Donal had but a glance of her; his eyes returned again at once to
his book, and he sat silent and motionless, though not seeing a
word. For one instant she stood still; then he heard the soft sound
of her dress as, with noiseless foot, she stole back, and took
another way.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140