not dead. She
used to come and sit outside the door, and listen to his breathing, and
ask if he ever spoke of her. What was the good of lying? If we said he
did, she'd have come in to him, and that would do no good, for he wasn't
right in his mind. By and by we told her he was getting well, and
then she didn't come, but stayed at home, just saying his name over to
herself. Alors, things take hold of a woman--it is strange! When Fingall
was strong enough to go out, I went with him the first time. He was all
thin and handsome as you can think, but he had no memory, and his eyes
were like a child's. She saw him, and came out to meet him. What does a
woman care for the world when she loves a man? Well, he just looked
at her as if he'd never seen her before, and passed by without a sign,
though afterwards a trouble came in his face. Three days later he was
gone, no one knew where. That is two years ago. Ever since she has been
looking for him."

"Is she mad?"

"Mad? Holy Mother! it is not good to have one thing in the head all the
time! What do you think? So much all at once! And then--"

"Hush, Pierre! There she is!" said Lawless, pointing to a ledge of rock
not far away.

The girl stood looking out across the valley, a weird, rapt look in her
face, her hair falling loose, a staff like a shepherd's crook in one
hand, the other hand over her eyes as she slowly looked from point to
point of the horizon.

The two watched her without speaking. Presently she saw them. She gazed
at them for a minute, then descended to them. Lawless and Pierre rose,
doffing their hats. She looked at both a moment, and her eyes settled on
Pierre. Presently she held out her hand to him. "I knew you--yesterday,"
she said.

Pierre returned the intensity of her gaze with one kind and strong.

"So--so, Cynthie," he said; "sit down and eat."

He dropped on a knee and drew a scone and some fish from the ashes. She
sat facing them, and, taking from a bag at her side some wild fruits,
ate slowly, saying nothing. Lawless noticed that her hair had become
grey at her temples, though she was but one-and-twenty years old. Her
face, brown as it was, shone with a white kind of light, which may, or
may not, have come from the crucible of her eyes, where the tragedy of
her life was fusing. Lawless could not bear to look long, for the fire
that consumes a body and sets free a soul is not for the sight of the
quick. At last she rose, her body steady, but her