ne so when a figure appeared at the opening of the
gorge and caught the ruddy flood of light. It was Winifred,
bare-headed. I knew it was she, and I waited in breathless suspense,
crouching close up into the crevice, dreading lest she should see me
and be frightened away. She stood in the eastern cleft of the gorge
against the sun for fully half a minute, looking around as a stag
might look that was trying to give the hunters the slip.

'She has seen the Gypsy,' I thought, 'and been scared by her.' Then
she came down and glided along the side of the pool. At first she did
not see me, though she stood opposite and stopped, while the
opalescent vapours from the pool steamed around her, and she shone as
through a glittering veil, her eyes flashing like sapphires. The
palpitation of my heart choked me; I dared not stir, I dared not
speak; the slightest movement or the slightest sound might cause her
to start away. There was she whom I had travelled and toiled to
find--there was she, so close to me, and yet must I let her pass and
perhaps lose her after all--for ever?

Where was the Gypsy girl? I was in an agony of desire to see her or
hear her crwth, and yet her approach might frighten Winifred to her
destruction.

But Winifred, who had now seen me, did not bound away with that
heart-quelling yell of hers which I had dreaded. No, I perceived to
my astonishment that the flash of the eyes was not of alarm, but of
greeting to me--pleasure at seeing me! She came close to the water,
and then I saw a smile on her face through the misty film--a flash of
shining teeth.

'May I come?' she said.

'Yes, Winifred,' I gasped, scarcely knowing what I said in my
surprise and joy.

She came slipping round the pool, and in a few seconds was by my
side. Her clothes were saturated with last night's rain, but though
she looked very cold, she did not shiver, a proof that she had not
lain down on the hills, but had walked about during the whole night.
There was no wildness of the maniac--there was no idiotic stare. But
oh the witchery of the gaze!

If one could imagine the look on the face of a wanderer from the
cloud-palaces of the sylphs, or the gaze in the eyes of a statue
newly animated by the passion of the sculptor who had fashioned it,
or the smile on the face of a wondering Eve just created upon the
earth--any one of these expressions would, perhaps, give the idea
of that on Winifred's face as she stood there.

'May I sit dow