II

As I was to sleep at the cottage, and as I knew not what part I might

have to play in Sinfi's wild frolic, I told the servants that any

letters which might reach the bungalow next morning were to be sent

at once to the cottage, should I not have returned thence.

At about the hour, as far as I could guess, when I had first knocked

at the cottage door at the beginning of my search for Winnie, I stood

there again. The door was on the latch. I pushed it open.

The scene I then saw was so exact a repetition of what had met my

eyes when for the first time I passed under that roof, that it did

not seem as though it could be real; it seemed as though it must be a

freak of memory: the same long low room, the same heavy beams across

the ceiling, the same three chairs, standing in the same places where

they stood then, the same table, and upon it the crwth and bow. There

was a brisk fire, and over it hung the kettle--the same kettle as

then. There were on the walls the same pictures, with the ruddy

fingers of the fire-gleam playing upon them and illuminating them in

the same pathetic way, and in front of the fire sitting upon the same

chair, was a youthful female figure--not Winnie's figure, taller than

hers, and grander than hers--the figure of Sinfi, her elbows resting

upon her knees, and her face sunk meditatively between her hands.

After standing for fully half a minute gazing at her, I went up to

her, and laying my hand upon her shoulder, I said, 'This is a good

sight for the Swimming Rei, Sinfi.'

At the touch of my hand a thrill seemed to dart through her frame;

she leaped up and stared wildly in my face. Her features became

contorted by terror--as horribly contorted as Winnie's had been in

the same spot and under the same circumstances. Exactly the same

terrible words fell upon my ear:--

'Let his children be vagabonds and beg their bread: let them seek it

also out of desolate places. So saith the Lord. Amen.'

Then she fell on the floor insensible.

At first I was too astonished, awed, and bewildered to stir from the

spot where I was standing. Then I knelt down, and raising her

shoulders, placed her head on my knee. For a time the expression of

horror on her pale features was fixed as though graven in marble. A

jug of water, from which the kettle had been supplied, stood on the

floor in the recess. I sprinkled some water over her face. The

muscles relaxed, she opened her eyes; the seizure had passed. She

recognised me, and at once the old brave smile I knew so well passed

over her face. Rhona's words about the curse and the purchase of the

dresses seemed explained now. Long brooding over Winnie's terrible

fate had unhinged her mind.

'My girl, my brave girl,' I said, 'have you, then, felt our sorrow so

deeply? Have you so fully shared poor Winnie's pain that your nerves

have given way at last? You are suffering through sympathy, Sinfi;

you are suffering poor Winnie's great martyrdom.'

'Oh, it ain't that!' she said, 'but how I must have skeared you!'

She got up and sat upon the chair in a much more vigorous way than I

could have expected after such a seizure.

'I am so sorry,' she said. 'It was the sudden feel o' your hand on my

shoulder that done it. It seemed to burn me like, and then it made my

blood seem scaldin' hot. If I'd only 'a' seed you come through the

door I shouldn't have had the fit. The doctor told me the fits wur

all gone now, and I feel sure as this is the last on 'em. You must go

to Knockers' Llyn with me to-morrow mornin' early. I want you to go

at the same time that we started when we tried that mornin' to find

Winnie.'

'Then Rhona's story is true,' I thought. 'Her delusion is that she is

going to Knockers' Llyn to be married.'

'The weather's goin' to be just the same as it was then,' she said,

'and when we get to Knockers' Llyn where you two breakfasted

together, I want to play the crwth and sing the song just as I did

then.'

She made no allusion to a wedding. Getting up and pouring the boiling

water from the kettle into the teapot, 'Something tells me,' she went

on, 'that when I touch my crwth to-morrow, and when I sing them words

by the side of Knockers' Llyn, you'll see the picture you want to

see, the livin' mullo o' Winnie.'

'Still no allusion to a wedding, but no doubt that will soon come,' I

murmured.

'I want to go the same way we went that day, and I want for you and

me to see everythink as we seed it then from fust to last.'

I was haunted by Rhona Boswell's words, and wondered when she would

begin talking about the wedding at Knockers' Llyn.

She never once alluded to it; but at intervals when the talk between

us flagged I could hear her muttering, 'He must see everythink just

as he seed it then from fust to last, and then it's good-bye for

ever.'

At last she said, 'I've had both the rooms upstairs made tidy to

sleep in--one for you and one for me. I'll call you in the mornin' at

the proper time. Goodnight.'

I was not sorry to get this summary dismissal and be alone with my

thoughts. When I got to bed I was kept awake by recalling the sight I

saw on entering the cottage. There seemed no other explanation of it

than this, the tragedy of Winifred had touched Sinfi's sympathetic

soul too deeply. Her imagination had seized upon the spectacle of

Winifred in one of her fits, and had caused so serious a disturbance

of her nervous system that through sheer fascination of repulsion her

face mimicked it exactly as Winifred's face had mimicked the original

spectacle of horror on the sands.