"As surely as the wild bird seeks the summer, you will come back,"
she whispered. "Is there a drop of blood in your veins that does not
grow ruddier and warmer at the thought of me? Does not your heart beat
quicker at this moment because I am here? It belongs to me;--it obeys
me in spite of your feeble will;--it will remain my slave when you are
gone. You have bewitched yourself at my lips; I hold you as a bird is
held by an invisible thread; and my thread, invisible and intangible,
is stronger than your will. Fly: but you can no longer fly beyond the
circle in which my wish confines you. Go: but I shall come to you in
dreams of the night; and you will be awakened by the beating of your
own heart to find yourself alone with darkness and memory. Sleep in
whose arms you will, I shall come like a ghost between you; kiss a
thousand lips, but it will be I that shall receive them. Though you
circle the earth in your wanderings, you will never be able to leave my
memory behind you; and your pulse will quicken at recollections of me
whether you find yourself under Indian suns or Northern lights. You lie
when you say you do not love me!--your heart would fling itself under
my feet could it escape from its living prison! You will come back."
And having vainly sought rest through many vainly spent years, I
returned to her. It was a night of wild winds and fleeting shadows and
strange clouds that fled like phantoms before the storm and across the
face of the moon. "You are a cursed witch," I shrieked, "but I have
come back!"
And she, placing a finger--white as the waxen tapers that are burned at
the feet of the dead--upon my lips, only smiled and whispered, "Come
with me."
And I followed her.
The thunder muttered in the east; the horizon pulsated with lightnings;
the night-birds screamed as we reached the iron gates of the
burial-ground, which swung open with a groan at her touch.
Noiselessly she passed through the ranges of the graves; and I saw the
mounds flame when her feet touched them--flame with a cold white dead
flame like the fire of the glow-worm.
Was it an illusion of broken moonlight and flying clouds, or did the
dead rise and follow us like a bridal train?
And was it only the vibration of the thunder, or did the earth quake
when I stood upon _that_ grave?
"Look not behind you even for an instant," she muttered, "or you are
lost."
But there came to me a strange desire to read the name graven upon the
moss-darkened stone; and even as it came the storm unveiled the face of
the moon. And the dark shadow at my side whispered, "Read it not!"
And the moon veiled herself again. "I cannot go! I cannot go!" I
whispered passionately, "until I have read the name upon this stone."
Then a flash of lightning in the east revealed to me the name; and an
agony of memory came upon me; and I shrieked it to the flying clouds
and the wan lights of heaven!
Again the earth quaked under my feet; and a white Shape rose from the
bosom of the grave like an exhalation and stood before me: I felt the
caress of lips shadowy as those of the fair phantom women who haunt the
dreams of youth; and the echo of a dead voice, faint as the whisper of
a summer wind, murmured: "Love, love is stronger than Death!--I come
back from the eternal night to save thee!"