aceful
curtsey, and said, 'You've come at last; I was thinking about you all
the while.'

Shall I ever forget her expression? Her eyes were alive with light
and pleasure. It was as though Winifred's soul had fled or the soul
of her childhood had re-entered and taken possession of her body. But
the witchery of her expression no words can describe. Never had I
seen her so lovely as now. Often when a child I had seen the boatmen
on the sands look at us as we passed--seen them stay in the midst of
their toil, their dull faces brightening with admiration, as though a
bar of unexpected sunlight had fallen across them. In the fields I
had seen labourers, sitting at their simple dinner under the hedges,
stay their meal to look after the child--so winning, dazzling, and
strange was her beauty. And when I had first met her again, a child
no longer, in the churchyard, my memory had accepted her at once as
fulfilling, and more than fulfilling, all her childhood's promise.
But never had she looked so bewitching as now--a poor mad girl who
had lost her wits from terror.

For some time I could only keep murmuring: 'More lovely mad than
sane!'

'As if I didn't _know_ the Prince!' said she. 'You who, in fine
weather or cloudy, wet or dry, are there on the hills to meet me! As
if I don't know the Prince of the Mist when I see him! But how kind
of you to come down here and see poor Winnie, poor lonely Winnie, at
home!'

She fetched a chair, placed it in front of the fire, pointed to it
with the same ravishingly childlike smile, indicating that it was for
me, and then, when she saw me mechanically sit down, picked up her
chair and came and sat close beside me.

In a second she was lost in a reverie as profound as that from which
I had aroused her; and the only sound I heard was the rain on the
window and the fitful gusts of wind playing around the cottage.

The wind having blown open the door, I got up to shut it. Winifred
rose too, and again taking hold of my hand, she looked up into my
face with a smile, and said, 'Don't go; I'm so lonely--poor Winnie's
so lonely.'

As I held her hand in mine, and closed my other hand over it, I
murmured to myself, 'If God will only give her to me like this--mad
like this--I will be content.'

'Dearest,' I said, longing to put my arm round her waist--to kiss her
own passionless lips--but I dared not, lest I might frighten her
away, 'I will not leave you. I will never leave you. You shall neve