Rand watched her from the distance--the hands and the white arm seen behind the gold strings, the slender figure in a gown of filmy white, the warm, bare throat pouring melody, the face that showed the soul within.

All the room watched her as she sang,-- "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage." Through the window came the sound of rain, the smell of wet box and of damask roses.

Now and then the lightning flashed, showing the garden and the white bloom of locust trees.
"Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage." Rand's heart ached with passionate longing, passionate admiration.

He thought that the voice to which he listened, the voice that brooded and dreamed, for all that it was so angel-sweet, would reach him past all the iron bars of time or of eternity.

He thought that when he came to die he would wish to die listening to it.