It cost her something to do this thing, for while she had often talked much and long with Richard about that old life, it now seemed as if she were to sing it to one who would not quite understand why she should sing it at all, or what was her real attitude towards her past--that she looked upon it from the infinite distance of affectionate pity, knowledge, and indescribable change, and yet loved the inspiring atmosphere and mystery of that lonely North, which once in the veins never leaves it--never.

Would he understand that she was feeling, not the common detail of the lodge and the camp-fire and the Company's post, but the deep spirit of Nature, filtering through the senses in a thousand ways--the wild ducks' flight, the sweet smell of the balsam, the exquisite gallop of the deer, the powder of the frost, the sun and snow and blue plains of water, the thrilling eternity of plain and the splendid steps of the hills, which led away by stair and entresol to the Kimash Hills, the Hills of the Mighty Men?
She did not know what he would think, and again on second thought she determined to make him, by this song, contrast her as she was when he married her, and now--how she herself could look upon that past unabashed, speak of it without blushing, sing of it with pride, having reached a point where she could look down and say: "This was the way by which I came." She rose, and was accompanied to the piano by General Armour, Frank admiring her soft, springing steps, her figure so girlish and lissom.
She paused for a little before she began.

Her eyes showed for a moment over the piano, deep, burning, in-looking; then they veiled; her fingers touched the keys, wandered over them in a few strange, soft chords, paused, wandered again, more firmly and very intimately, and then she sang.

Her voice was a good contralto, well balanced, true, of no great range, but within its compass melodious, and having some inexpressible charm of temperament.

Frank did not need to strain his ears to hear the words; every one came clear, searching, delicately valued: "In the flash of the singing dawn, At the door of the Great One, The joy of his lodge knelt down, Knelt down, and her hair in the sun Shone like showering dust, And her eyes were as eyes of the fawn.
And she cried to her lord, 'O my lord, O my life, From the desert I come; From the hills of the Dawn.' And he lifted the curtain and said, 'Hast thou seen It, the Yellow Swan ?' "And she lifted her head, and her eyes Were as lights in the dark, And her hands folded slow on her breast, And her face was as one who has seen The gods and the place where they dwell; And she said: 'Is it meet that I kneel, That I kneel as I speak to my lord ?' And he answered her: 'Nay, but to stand, And to sit by my side; But speak, thou hast followed the trail, Hast thou found It, the Yellow Swan ?' "And she stood as a queen, and her voice Was as one who hath seen the Hills, The Hills of the Mighty Men, And hath heard them cry in the night, Hath heard them call in the dawn, Hath seen It, the Yellow Swan.
And she said: 'It is not for my lord;' And she murmured, 'I cannot tell, But my lord must go as I went, And my lord must come as I came, And my lord shall be wise.' "And he cried in his wrath, 'What is thine, it is mine, And thine eyes are my eyes Thou shalt speak of the Yellow Swan!' But she answered him: 'Nay, though I die.
I have lain in the nest of the Swan, I have heard, I have known; When thine eyes too have seen, When thine ears too have heard, Thou shalt do with me then as thou wilt!' "And he lifted his hand to strike, And he straightened his spear to slay, But a great light struck on his eyes, And he heard the rushing of wings, And his long spear fell from his hand, And a terrible stillness came.
And when the spell passed from his eyes, He stood in his doorway alone, And gone was the queen of his soul, And gone was the Yellow Swan." Frank Armour listened as in a dream.