are suffering poor Winnie's great martyrdom.'

'Oh, it ain't that!' she said, 'but how I must have skeared you!'

She got up and sat upon the chair in a much more vigorous way than I
could have expected after such a seizure.

'I am so sorry,' she said. 'It was the sudden feel o' your hand on my
shoulder that done it. It seemed to burn me like, and then it made my
blood seem scaldin' hot. If I'd only 'a' seed you come through the
door I shouldn't have had the fit. The doctor told me the fits wur
all gone now, and I feel sure as this is the last on 'em. You must go
to Knockers' Llyn with me to-morrow mornin' early. I want you to go
at the same time that we started when we tried that mornin' to find
Winnie.'

'Then Rhona's story is true,' I thought. 'Her delusion is that she is
going to Knockers' Llyn to be married.'

'The weather's goin' to be just the same as it was then,' she said,
'and when we get to Knockers' Llyn where you two breakfasted
together, I want to play the crwth and sing the song just as I did
then.'

She made no allusion to a wedding. Getting up and pouring the boiling
water from the kettle into the teapot, 'Something tells me,' she went
on, 'that when I touch my crwth to-morrow, and when I sing them words
by the side of Knockers' Llyn, you'll see the picture you want to
see, the livin' mullo o' Winnie.'

'Still no allusion to a wedding, but no doubt that will soon come,' I
murmured.

'I want to go the same way we went that day, and I want for you and
me to see everythink as we seed it then from fust to last.'

I was haunted by Rhona Boswell's words, and wondered when she would
begin talking about the wedding at Knockers' Llyn.

She never once alluded to it; but at intervals when the talk between
us flagged I could hear her muttering, 'He must see everythink just
as he seed it then from fust to last, and then it's good-bye for
ever.'

At last she said, 'I've had both the rooms upstairs made tidy to
sleep in--one for you and one for me. I'll call you in the mornin' at
the proper time. Goodnight.'

I was not sorry to get this summary dismissal and be alone with my
thoughts. When I got to bed I was kept awake by recalling the sight I
saw on entering the cottage. There seemed no other explanation of it
than this, the tragedy of Winifred had touched Sinfi's sympathetic
soul too deeply. Her imagination had seized upon the spectacle of
Winifred in one of her fits, and had caused so serious a dist