ed that a fairy prince and princess dwelt therein.

The childhood memories came back to Evelina with a pang. She stopped
to wipe away the tears beneath her veil, to choke back a sob that
tightened her throat. Suddenly, she felt a presentiment of oncoming
evil, a rushing destiny that could not be swerved aside. Frightened,
she turned to go back; then stopped again.

From above, on the upper part of the road, came the tread of horse's
feet and the murmur of wheels. Her face paled to marble, her feet
refused to move. The heart within her stood portentously still. With
downcast eyes she stood there, petrified, motionless, like a woman
carved in stone and clothed in black, veiled impenetrably in chiffon.

At a furious pace, Anthony Dexter dashed by, his face as white as her
chiffon. She had known unerringly who was coming; and had felt the
searing consciousness of his single glance before, with a muttered
oath, he had lashed his horse to a gallop. This, then, was the last;
there was nothing more.

The sound of the wheels died away in the distance. He had the pearls,
he had seen her, he knew that she had come back. And still she lived.

Clear and high, like a bugle call, a strain of wild music came from the
enchanted forest. Evelina threw back her head, gasping for breath; her
sluggish feet stirred forward. Some forgotten valour of her spirit
leaped to answer the summons, as a soldier, wounded unto death, turns
to follow the singing trumpets that lead the charge.

Strangely soft and tender, the strain came again, less militant, less
challenging. Swiftly upon its echo breathed another, hinting of peace.
Shaken to her inmost soul by agony, she took heed of the music with the
precise consciousness one gives to trifles at moments of unendurable
stress. Blindly she turned into the forest.

"What was it?" she asked herself, repeatedly, wondering that she could
even hear at a time like this. A bird? No, there was never a bird to
sing like that. Almost it might be Pan himself with his syrinx,
walking abroad on the first day of Spring.

The fancy appealed to her strongly, her swirling senses having become
exquisitely acute. "Pipes o' Pan," she whispered, "I will find and
follow you." To see the face of Pan meant death, according to the old
Greek legend, but death was something of which she was not afraid.

Lyric, tremulous, softly appealing, the music came again. The bare
boughs bent with their chiming cry