TO THE LIGHTHOUSEfaltered (Lily was tired out with travelling and sleptalmost at once; but Mr. Carmichael read a book bycandlelight), if they still said no, that it was vapour,this splendour of his, and the dew had more powerthan he, and they preferred sleeping; gently thenwithout complaint, or argument, the voice wouldsing its song. Gently the waves would break (Lilyheard them in her sleep); tenderly the light fell (itseemed to come through her eyelids). And it alllooked, Mr. Carmichael thought, shutting his book,falling asleep, much as it used to look.

Indeed the voice might resume, as the curtains ofdark wrapped themselves over the house, over Mrs.Beckwith, Mr. Carmichael, and Lily Briscoe so thatthey lay with several folds of blackness on theireyes, why not accept this, be content with this,acquiesce and resign? The sigh of all the seasbreaking in measure round the isles soothed them;the night wrapped them; nothing broke their sleep,until, the birds beginning and the dawn weavingtheir thin voices in to its whiteness, a cart grinding,a dog somewhere barking, the sun lifted the cur-tains, broke the veil on their eyes, and Lily Briscoestirring in her sleep. She clutched at her blankets asa faller clutches at the turf on the edge of a cliff.Her eyes opened wide. Here she was again, shethought, sitting bolt upright in bed. Awake.214
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