Mary Marston by MacDonald, George, 1824-1905

A sob, like a bird new-born, burst from Mary's bosom. It broke the enchantment in which Joseph was bound. That enchantment had possessed him, usurping as it were the throne of his life, and displacing it; when it ceased, he was not his own master. He started--to conscious confusion only, neither knowing where he was nor what he did. His limbs for the moment were hardly his own. How it happened he never could tell, but he brought down his violin with a crash against the piano, then somehow stumbled and all but fell. In the act of recovering himself, he heard the neck of his instrument part from the body with a tearing, discordant cry, like the sound of the ruin of a living world. He stood up, understanding now, holding in his hand his dead music, and regarding it with a smile sad as a winter sunset gleaming over a grave. But Mary darted to him, threw her arms round him, laid her head on his bosom, and burst into tears. Tenderly he laid his broken violin on the piano, and, like one receiving a gift straight from the hand of the Godhead, folded his arms around the woman--enough, if music itself had been blotted from his universe! His violin was broken, but his being was made whole! his treasure taken--type of his self, and a woman given him instead!

"It's just like him!" he murmured.

He was thinking of him who, when a man was brought him to be delivered from a poor palsy, forgave him his sins.

CHAPTER LVII.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING.