II

That I determined to cultivate the acquaintance of Sinfi Lovell I

need scarcely say. But my first purpose was to see the cottage. The

landlord showed me the way to it. He warned me that a storm was

coming on, but I did not let that stay me. Masses of dark clouds were

gathering, and there was every sign of a heavy rainstorm as I went

out along the road in the direction indicated.

There was a damp boisterous wind, that seemed blowing from all points

of the compass at once, and in a minute I was caught in a swirl of

blinding rain. I took no heed of it, however, but hurried along the

lonely road till I reached the cottage, which I knew at once was the

one I sought. It was picturesque, but had a deserted look.

It was not till I stood in front or the door that I began to consider

what I really intended to do in case I found her there. A heedless,

impetuous desire to see her--to get possession of her--had brought me

to Wales. But what was to be my course of action if I found her I had

never given myself time to think.

If I could only clasp her in my arms and tell her I was Henry, I felt

that she must, even in madness, know me and cling to me. I could not

realise that any insanity could estrange her from me if I could only

get near her.

I put my thumb upon the old-fashioned latch, and found that the door

was not locked. It yielded to my touch, and with a throbbing of every

pulse, I pushed it open and looked in.

In front of me rose a staircase, steep and narrow. There was

sufficient evening light to enable me to see up the staircase, and to

distinguish two black bedroom doors, now closed, on the landing. I

stood on the wet threshold till my nerves grew calmer. On my right

and on my left the doors of the two rooms on the ground floor were

open. I could see that the one on my left was stripped of furniture.

I entered the room on my right--a low room of some considerable

length, with heavy beams across the ceiling, which in that light

seemed black. Two or three chairs and a table were in it. There was a

brisk fire, and over it a tea-kettle of the kind much favoured by

Gypsies, as I afterwards learnt. There was no grate, but an open

hearth, exactly like the one in Wynne's cottage, where Winifred and I

used to stand in summer evenings to see the sky, and the stars

twinkling above the great sooty throat of the open chimney. I now

perceived the crwth and bow upon the table. Sinfi Lovell had

evidently been here since we parted. On the walls hung a few of those

highly coloured prints of Scriptural subjects which, at one time,

used to be seen in English farm-houses, and are still the only works

of art with the Welsh peasants and a few well-to-do Welsh Gypsies who

would emulate Gorgio tastes.

On the left-hand side of the room was an arched recess, in which, no

doubt, had stood at one time a sideboard, or some such piece of

furniture. There was no occupant of the room, however, and I grew

calmer as I stood before the fire, which drew from my wet clothes a

cloud of steam. The ruddy fingers of the fire-gleam playing upon the

walls made the colours of the pictures seem bright as the tints of

stained glass. The pathetic message of those flickering rays flowed

into my soul. The red mantle of the Prodigal Son, in which he was

feeding the swine, shone as though it had been soaked in sorrow and

blood-red sin. The house was apparently empty; the tension of my

passion became for the first time relaxed, and I passed into a

strange mood of pathos, dreamy, but yet acute, in which Winifred's

fate, and my mother's harshness, and my father's scarred breast,

seemed all a mingled mystery of reminiscent pain.

I had not stood more than a minute, however, when I was startled into

a very different mood. I thought I heard a sobbing noise, which

seemed to me to come from some one overhead, some one lying upon the

boards of the room above me. I was rooted to the spot where I stood,

for the sob seemed scarcely human, and yet it seemed to be hers. A

new feeling about Winifred's madness came upon me. I recalled

Mivart's horrible description of the mimicry. My God! what was I

about to see? I dared not turn and go upstairs: the fire and the

singing tea-kettle were, at least, companions. But something impelled

me to take the bow and draw it across the crwth-strings. Presently I

thought I heard a door overhead softly open, and this was followed by

the almost inaudible creak of a light footstep descending the stairs.

With paralysed pulses I kept my eyes fixed on the half-open door, in

the certainty of seeing her pass along the little passage leading

from the staircase to the front door. But as I heard the dear

footsteps descend stair after stair my horror left me, and I nearly

began to sob myself. My thoughts now were all for her safety. I

slipped into the recess, fearing to take her by surprise.

Soon the slim girlish figure passed into the room. And as I saw her

glide along I was stunned, as though I had not expected to see her,

as though I had not known the footstep coming down the stairs.

With her eyes fixed on the fireplace, she brushed past me without

perceiving me, took a chair, and sat down in front of the fire, her

elbows resting on her knees, and her face meditatively sunk between

her hands. Her sobbing bad ceased, and unless my ears deceived me,

had given place to an occasional soft happy gurgle of childish

laughter.

I stepped out from the shelter of my archway into the middle of the

room, dubious as to what course to pursue. I thought that, on the

whole, the movement that would startle her least would be to slip

quietly out of the room and out of the house while she was in the

reverie, then knock at the door. She would arouse herself then,

expecting to see some one, and would not be so entirely taken by

surprise at the sight of my face as she would have been at finding

me, without the slightest warning, standing behind her in the room.

I did this: I slipped out at the door and knocked, gently at first,

but got no answer; then a little louder--no answer; then louder and

louder, till at last I thundered at the door in a state of growing

alarm; still no answer.

'She is stone deaf,' I thought; and now I remembered having noticed,

as she brushed past me, a far-off gaze in her eyes, such as some

stone-deaf people show.

I re-entered the house. There she was, sitting immovably before the

fire, in the same reverie. I coughed and hemmed, softly at first,

then more loudly, finally with such vigour that I ran the risk of

damaging my throat, and still there was no movement of that head bent

over the fire and resting in the palms of the hands. At last I made a

step forward, then another, finally finding myself on the knitted

cloth hearthrug beside her. I now had the full view of her profile.

That she should be still unconscious of my presence was

unaccountable, for I stood at the end of the rug gazing at her. Again

I coughed and hemmed, but without producing the smallest effect. Then

I determined to address her; but I thought it would be safer to do so

as a stranger than to announce myself at once as Henry.

'I beg pardon,' I said, 'but is there any one at home?'

No answer.

'Is this the way to Capel Curig?

No answer.

'Will you give me shelter?' I said; and finally I gave a desperate

'halloo.'

My efforts had not produced the slightest effect. I was now in a

state of great agitation. That she was stone deaf seemed evident. But

was she not in some kind of fit, though without the contortions of

face Mivart had described to me--contortions which haunted me as much

as though I had seen them? I stooped down and gazed into her face.

There was now no terror there, nor even sorrow. I could see in her

eyes sparks of pleasure, as in the eyes of an infant when it seems to

see in the air pictures or colours to which our eyes are blind. Round

about her cheek and mouth a little dimple was playing, exactly like

the dimple that plays around the mouth of a pleased child. This

marvellous expression on her face recalled to me what Mivart had said

as to the form her dementia assumed between one paroxysm and another.

'Thank God,' thought I, 'she's not in a fit: she's only deaf.'

Driven to desperation, however, I seized her shoulder and shook it.

This aroused her. She started up with violence, at the same time

overturning the chair upon which she had been sitting. She stared at

me wildly. The danger of what I had done struck me now. A fortunate

inspiration caused me to say, 'Tywysog o'r Niwl.' Then there broke

over her face a sweet smile of childish pleasure. She made a graceful

curtsey, and said, 'You've come at last; I was thinking about you all

the while.'

Shall I ever forget her expression? Her eyes were alive with light

and pleasure. It was as though Winifred's soul had fled or the soul

of her childhood had re-entered and taken possession of her body. But

the witchery of her expression no words can describe. Never had I

seen her so lovely as now. Often when a child I had seen the boatmen

on the sands look at us as we passed--seen them stay in the midst of

their toil, their dull faces brightening with admiration, as though a

bar of unexpected sunlight had fallen across them. In the fields I

had seen labourers, sitting at their simple dinner under the hedges,

stay their meal to look after the child--so winning, dazzling, and

strange was her beauty. And when I had first met her again, a child

no longer, in the churchyard, my memory had accepted her at once as

fulfilling, and more than fulfilling, all her childhood's promise.

But never had she looked so bewitching as now--a poor mad girl who

had lost her wits from terror.

For some time I could only keep murmuring: 'More lovely mad than

sane!'

'As if I didn't _know_ the Prince!' said she. 'You who, in fine

weather or cloudy, wet or dry, are there on the hills to meet me! As

if I don't know the Prince of the Mist when I see him! But how kind

of you to come down here and see poor Winnie, poor lonely Winnie, at

home!'

She fetched a chair, placed it in front of the fire, pointed to it

with the same ravishingly childlike smile, indicating that it was for

me, and then, when she saw me mechanically sit down, picked up her

chair and came and sat close beside me.

In a second she was lost in a reverie as profound as that from which

I had aroused her; and the only sound I heard was the rain on the

window and the fitful gusts of wind playing around the cottage.

The wind having blown open the door, I got up to shut it. Winifred

rose too, and again taking hold of my hand, she looked up into my

face with a smile, and said, 'Don't go; I'm so lonely--poor Winnie's

so lonely.'

As I held her hand in mine, and closed my other hand over it, I

murmured to myself, 'If God will only give her to me like this--mad

like this--I will be content.'

'Dearest,' I said, longing to put my arm round her waist--to kiss her

own passionless lips--but I dared not, lest I might frighten her

away, 'I will not leave you. I will never leave you. You shall never

be lonely any more.'