It seemed to his heart as if the moaning were the voice of the darkness, lamenting, like a repentant Satan or Judas, that it was not the light, could not hold the light, might not become as the light, but must that moment cease when the light began to enter it.

Darkness and moaning was all that the earth contained! Would the souls of the mariners shipwrecked this night go forth into the ceaseless turmoil?
or would they, leaving behind them the sense for storms, as for all things soft and sweet as well, enter only a vast silence, where was nothing to be aware of but each solitary self?
Thoughts and theories many passed through Donal's mind as he sought to land the conceivable from the wandering bosom of the limitless; and he was just arriving at the conclusion, that, as all things seen must be after the fashion of the unseen whence they come, as the very genius of embodiment is likeness, therefore the soul of man must of course have natural relations with matter; but, on the other hand, as the spirit must be the home and origin of all this moulding, assimilating, modelling energy, and the spirit only that is in harmonious oneness with its origin can fully exercise the deputed creative power, it can be only in proportion to the eternal life in them, that spirits are able to draw to themselves matter and clothe themselves in it, so entering into full relation with the world of storms and sunsets;--he was, I say, just arriving at this hazarded conclusion, when he started out of his reverie, and was suddenly all ear to listen .-- Again!--Yes! it was the same sound that had sent him that first night wandering through the house in fruitless quest! It came in two or three fitful chords that melted into each other like the colours in the lining of a shell, then ceased.

He went to the door, opened it, and listened.

A cold wind came rushing up the stair.

He heard nothing.