treachery, demanding to know
whence he had produced her rival, appealing to the elders to revise the
judgment. Then, suddenly ceasing, as she saw by the looks of those
around her that while in some her fate created pity, in others it gave
rise to amusement, in many to the pleasure which poor human nature felt
then as now in a friend's misfortune, her mood altered: she turned and,
rapidly leaving the crowd, crossed one of the bridges. Hastening her
steps, but not watching them, she tripped over the straggling root of a
yew, and fell, her temple striking a sharp boulder, one of many cropping
up in the forest. Poor girl! in one moment passion and pride had flown;
she lay senseless, blood streaming from the wound.

A quick revulsion of feeling swept through the impressionable people.
Her departure had been watched, the fall observed, and the serious
nature of the accident was soon known; all hurried to the spot where she
lay, full of sympathy and distress. Jean, perhaps not altogether
unremorseful, was among the first to proffer aid; the stranger, left
alone, took off the wreath and placed it on one of the stones of the
circle, by which she stood contemplating the scene.

The blow, struck deep into the temple, was beyond any ordinary means of
cure; life indeed seemed to be ebbing away. "Send for Marie!" the cry
sprang from many mouths: "send for Marie the wise woman! she alone can
save her!" Three or four youths ran hastily off.

"Wish ye for Marie Torode's body or her spirit?" said a harsh female
voice; "her body ye can have! but what avail closed eyes and rigid
limbs? Her spirit, tossed by the whirling death-blast, is beyond your
reach!"

The speaker, on whom all eyes turned, was an aged woman of unusual
height; her snow-white hair was confined by a metal circlet, her eyes
were keen and searching, her gestures imperious; her dress was simple
and would have been rude but for the quaintly ornamented silver girdle
that bound her waist, and the massive bracelets on her arms. Like the
girl she was seen for the first time; her almost supernatural appearance
inspired wonder and awe. She bent over the prostrate form: "Marie said
with her last breath," she muttered to herself, "that ere the oaks were
green again the sweetest maidens in the island would be in her embrace,
but she cannot summon this one now! her vext spirit has not yet the
power!"

She examined the wound, and raising herself said, "No human hand can
save her.