All the bodily natural part of her caught the tones of Nature's happy voice that bade her break her bonds, live and love, and be a woman.

And lo! the spirit within her answered to it, flinging wide her bosom's doors, and of a sudden, as it were, something quickened and lived in her heart that was of her and yet had its own life--a life apart; something that sprang from her and another, which would always be with her now and could never die.

She rose pale and trembling, as a woman trembles at the first stirring of the child that she shall bear, and clung to the flowery bough of the beautiful bush above, then sank down again, feeling that the spirit of her girlhood had departed from her, and another angel had entered there; knowing that she loved with heart and soul and body, and was a very woman.
She had called to Love as the wretched call to Death, and Love had come in his strength and possessed her utterly; and now for a little while she was afraid to pass into the shadow of his wings, as the wretched who call to Death fear him when they feel his icy fingers.

But the fear passed, and the great joy and the new consciousness of power and of identity that the inspiration of a true passion gives to some strong deep natures remained, and after a while Jess prepared to make her way home across the mountain-top, feeling as though she were another being.
Still she did not go, but lay there with closed eyes and drank of this new intoxicating wine.

So absorbed was she that she did not notice that the doves had ceased to call, and that the eagle had fled away for shelter.