And it was in this fashion that Angus heard her first sing what she called "A song of the sea," running thus: I heard the sea cry out in the night Like a fretful child-- Moaning under the pale moonlight In a passion wild-- And my heart cried out with the sea, in tears, For the sweet lost joys of my vanished years! I heard the sea laugh out in the noon Like a girl at play-- All forgot was the mournful moon In the dawn of day! And my heart laughed out with the sea, in gladness, And I thought no more of bygone sadness.
I think the sea is a part of me With its gloom and glory-- What Has Been, and what yet Shall Be Is all its story; Rise up, O Heart, with the tidal flow, And drown the sorrows of Long Ago! Something eerie and mystical there was in these words, sung as she sang them in a low, soft, contralto, sustained by the pathetic quiver of the zither strings throbbing under the pressure of her white fingers, and Angus asked her where she had learned the song.
"I found it,"-- she answered, somewhat evasively.
"Did you compose it yourself ?" She flushed a little.
"How can you imagine such a thing ?" He was silent, but "imagined" the more.

And after this he began to show her certain scenes and passages in the book he was writing, sometimes reading them aloud to her with all that eager eloquence which an author who loves and feels his work is bound to convey into the pronounced expression of it.

And she listened, absorbed and often entranced, for there was no gain-saying the fact that Angus Reay was a man of genius.
He was inclined to underrate rather than overestimate his own abilities, and often showed quite a pathetic mistrust of himself in his very best and most original conceptions.
"When I read to you,"-- he said to her, one day--"You must tell me the instant you feel bored.

That's a great point! Because if _you_ feel bored, other people who read the book will feel bored exactly as you do and at the very same passage.

And you must criticise me mercilessly! Rend me to pieces--tear my sentences to rags, and pick holes in every detail, if you like! That will do me a world of good!" Mary laughed.
"But why ?" she asked, "Why do you want me to be so unkind to you ?" "It won't be unkind,"-- he declared--"It will be very helpful.