<< First         < Previous

Page 214


faltered (Lily was tired out with travelling and slept
almost at once; but Mr. Carmichael read a book by
candlelight), if they still said no, that it was vapour,
this splendour of his, and the dew had more power
than he, and they preferred sleeping; gently then
without complaint, or argument, the voice would
sing its song. Gently the waves would break (Lily
heard them in her sleep); tenderly the light fell (it
seemed to come through her eyelids). And it all
looked, Mr. Carmichael thought, shutting his book,
falling asleep, much as it used to look.
    Indeed the voice might resume, as the curtains of
dark wrapped themselves over the house, over Mrs.
Beckwith, Mr. Carmichael, and Lily Briscoe so that
they lay with several folds of blackness on their
eyes, why not accept this, be content with this,
acquiesce and resign? The sigh of all the seas
breaking in measure round the isles soothed them;
the night wrapped them; nothing broke their sleep,
until, the birds beginning and the dawn weaving
their thin voices in to its whiteness, a cart grinding,
a dog somewhere barking, the sun lifted the cur-
tains, broke the veil on their eyes, and Lily Briscoe
stirring in her sleep. She clutched at her blankets as
a faller clutches at the turf on the edge of a cliff.
Her eyes opened wide. Here she was again, she
thought, sitting bolt upright in bed. Awake.

Page 1

<< First         < Previous