Suddenly she put out one hand and stopped her deer, while with the other she gave Attatak a mute signal for silence.
Breaking gently through the hushed stillness of the forest, like a spring zephyr over a meadow, there came to her ears a sound of wonderful sweetness.
“Music,” she breathed, “and such music! The very music of Heaven!”
Moments passed, and still with slightly bowed heads, as if listening to the Angelus, they stood there, still as statues, listening to the strange music.
“The woods were God’s first temples,” Marian whispered.
For the moment she lived as in a trance. A great lover of music, she felt the thrill of perfect melody breaking over her soul like bright waves upon golden sand. She fancied that this melody had no human origin, that it was a spontaneous outburst from the very heart of the forest; God himself speaking through the mute life of earth.
When this illusion had passed she still stood there wondering.
For a moment Attatak did not answer. She was counting on her fingers.
“Sunday,” Marian repeated. “And that is a pipe organ. How wonderful! How perfectly beautiful! A pipe organ in the midst of the forest!”
“And yet,” she hesitated, scarcely daring to believe her senses, “how could a pipe organ be brought way up here?”
“But it is!” she affirmed a few seconds later. “Attatak, you watch the deer while I go ahead and find out what sort of place it is, and whether there are dangerous dogs about.”
Her wonder grew with every step that she took in the direction of the mysterious musician. As she came closer, and the tones became more distinct, she knew that she could not be mistaken.
“It’s a pipe organ,” she told herself with conviction, “and a splendid one at that! Who in all the world would bring such a wonderful instrument away up here? Strange I have never heard of this settlement. It must be a rather large village or they could not afford such an organ for their church.”
As she thought of these things, and as the rise and fall of the music still came sweeping through the trees, a strange spell fell upon her. It was as if she were resting upon the soft, cushioned seat of some splendid church. With the service appealing to her sense of the artistic and the beautiful, and to her instinct of reverence; with the soft lights pervading all, she was again in the chapel of her own university.