Then came a sound of crashing walls, and for a moment it ceased, only to rise again still clearer and more triumphant.

Again a crash--a seething hiss--and the instrument was silent, for its twin was shattered.
Shattered also was the fair shape that held the spirit of Stella.
Again and again Morris spoke eagerly, entreatingly, but the aerophone was dumb.

So he ceased at length, and even then well nigh laughed when he thought that in this useless piece of mechanism he saw a symbol of his own soul, which also had lost its mate and could hold true converse with no other.
Then he started up, and just as he was, ran out into the raving night.
Three hours later, when the sun rose upon Christmas Day, if any had been there to note him they might have seen a dishevelled man standing alone upon the lonely shore.

There he stood, the back-wash of the mighty combers hissing about his knees as he looked seaward beneath the hollow of his hand at a spot some two hundred yards away, where one by one their long lines were broken into a churning yeast of foam.
Morris knew well what broke them--the fallen ruins of the church that was now Stella's sepulchre, and, oh! in that dark hour, he would have been glad to seek her where she lay..