did you not come back sooner?"

Afraid to trouble her brain by the sudden shock of too rapidly
recurring memories, Morgana made no reply, but merely soothed her with
tender caresses, when all at once she made a violent struggle to rise
from the bed.

"I must go!" she cried--"He is calling me! I must follow him--yes, even
if he kills me for it--he is in danger!"

Morgana held her close and firmly.

"Hush, hush, dear!" she murmured--"Be quite still! He is safe--believe
me! He is near you--in the next room!--out of all danger."

"Oh, no, it is not possible!" and the girl's eyes grew wild with
terror--"He cannot be safe!--he is destroying himself! I have followed
him every step of the way--I have watched him,--oh!--so long!--and he
came out of the hut this morning--I was hidden among the trees--he
could not see me--" she broke off, and a violent trembling shook her
whole body. Morgana tried to calm her into silence, but she went on
rambling incoherently. "There was something he carried as though it was
precious to him--something that glittered like gold,--and he went away
quickly--quickly to the canyon,--I followed him like a dog, crawling
through the brushwood--I followed him across the deep water--to the
cave where it was all dark--black as midnight!" She paused--then
suddenly flung her arms round Morgana crying--"Oh, hold me!--hold
me!--I am in this darkness trying to find him!--there!--there!--he
turns and sees me by the light of a lamp he carries; he knows I have
followed him, and he is angry! Oh, dear God, he is angry--he raises his
arm to strike me!" She uttered a smothered shriek, and clung to Morgana
in a kind of frenzy. "No mercy, no pity! That thing that glitters in
his hand--it frightens me--what is it? I kneel to him on the cold
stones--I pray him to forgive me--to come with me--but his arm is still
raised to strike--he does not care--!"

Here a pale horror blanched her features--she drew herself away from
Morgana's hold and put out her hands with the instinctive gesture of
one who tries to escape falling from some great height. Morgana,
alarmed at her looks, caught her again in her arms and held her
tenderly, whereat a faint smile hovered on her lips and her distraught
movements ceased.

"What is this?"--she asked--then murmured--"My little white lady, how
did you come here? How could you cross the flood?--unless on wings?
Ah!--you are a fairy and you can do all you wish to do--but you cannot
save HIM