When Winnie got to this point she said, 'Yes, Henry, poor Sinfi seems
in some unaccountable way to have learnt all about that piece of
parchment and the curse written upon it. She has been under the
extraordinary delusion that her own father, poor Panuel Lovell, was
the violator of the tomb, and that she has inherited the curse.'
'Good God, Winnie!' I exclaimed; and when I recalled what I had seen
of Sinfi in the cottage, I was racked with perplexity, pity, and
wonder. What could it mean?
'Yes,' said Winifred, 'she has been possessed by this astounding
delusion, and it used to bring on fits which were appalling to
witness. They are passed now, however.'
'Is she recovered now?'
'Mr. D'Arcy,' said Winnie, 'assured me that, in the opinion of the
doctor, the delusion would not he permanent, but that Sinfi would
soon be entirely restored to health. While Mr. D'Arcy and I were
talking about her Sinfi came through the wicket again. Rushing up to
me and seizing my hand, she said,
'"Oh, Winnie, how I must have skeared you! I dare say Mr. D'Arcy has
told you that I've been subject to fits o' late. It was comin' on you
suddint as I did under the tree that brought it on. I wouldn't let
Mr. D'Arcy tell you I wur here until I wur quite sure I should have
no more on 'em, but the doctor said this very day that I wur now
quite well."
'My mind ran all night long upon the mystery of Sinfi Lovell. Mr.
D'Arcy's explanation of her appearance at Hurstcote Manor was
certainly clear enough, but somehow its very clearness aroused
suspicion--no, I will not say suspicion--misgivings. If he had been
able, while he seemed so frank and open, to keep away from me a
secret--I mean the secret of Sinfi Lovell's being concealed in the
house--what secrets might he not be concealing from me about my own
mystery? Did he not know everything that occurred during that period
which was a blank in my mind, the period from my sinking down on the
sands to my waking up in his house?
'From the very first, indeed, a feeling of mystery had haunted me. I
had often pondered over every circumstance that attended my waking
into life, but that incident which was the most firmly fixed in my
mind was the sight of the feet of a tall woman whose body was hid by
the screen between my couch and the other one. When I asked Mr.
D'Arcy about this, he did not say in so many words that I was
suffering from a delusion about those feet, but he talked about the
illusion which generally accompanied a recovery from such illnesses
as mine. Now of course I felt sure that Sinfi was the person I had
seen on the couch. But why was she there?
'I did not see Mr. D'Arcy until the afternoon after the guests had
left, for in order to avoid seeing him and them, I took a long stroll
by the river and then got into the punt. I had scarcely done so when
Sinfi appeared on the bank and hailed me. I took her into the punt.
She was so entirely herself that I found it difficult to believe in
the startling spectacle of the previous evening, although her
expression was careworn, and she certainly looked a little paler than
she used to look when she and I and Rhona Boswell were such great
friends; her splendid beauty and bearing were as striking as ever, I
thought. I was expecting every minute that she would say something
about what occurred under the elm tree in the home close. But she did
not allude to it, and therefore I did not. We spent the entire
afternoon in reminiscences of Carnarvonshire. When she told me that
she knew you and that you had been there together, and when she told
me the cause of your being there, and told me of your search for me,
and all the distress that came to you on my account, my longing to
see you was like a fever.
'But vivid as were the pictures that Sinfi gave me of your search for
me, I could not piece them together in a plain tale. I tried to do
so; it was impossible. What had happened to me after I had become
unconscious on the sands in that unaccountable way--why I was found
in Wales--how I could possibly have got there without knowing about
it--what had led to my being discovered by Mr. D'Arcy--discovered in
London, above all places, and in a painter's studio--these questions
were with me night and day, and Sinfi was entirely unable to tell me
anything about the matter, unless, as I sometimes half-thought, she
was concealing something from me.'
'How could you have suspicions of poor Sinfi?' I said, for I was
becoming alarmed at the way in which these inquiries were absorbing
Winnie's mind.
'It is, I know, Henry, a peculiarity of my nature to be extremely
confiding until I have once been deceived, and then to be just as
suspicious. Kind as Mr. D'Arcy has been to me, I began to feel
restless in his haven of refuge. I think that he perceived it, for I
often found his eyes fixed upon me with a somewhat inquiring and
anxious expression in them. I felt that I must leave him and go out
into the world and take my place in the battle of life.'
'But, Winnie,' I said, 'you don't say that you intended to come to
me. Battle of life, indeed! Where should Winnie stand in that battle
except by the side of Henry? You knew now where to find me. Sinfi,
of course, told you that I was in Wales. And you did not even write
to me! What can it mean?'
'Why, Henry, don't you know what it means? Don't you know that the
newspapers were full of long paragraphs about the heir of the Aylwins
having left his famous bungalow and gone to Japan? Why, it was
actually copied into the little penny weekly thing that Mrs. Titwing
takes in, and it was there that I read it.'
'This shows the folly of ignoring the papers,' I said. 'I did
undoubtedly say in some letters to friends that I proposed going to
Japan; but my loss of you, my grief, my misery, paralysed every
faculty of mine. My strength of purpose was all gone. I delayed and
delayed starting, and never left Wales at all, as you see.'
'Two things,' continued Winnie, 'prevented my leaving Hurstcote--my
promise to Mr. D'Arcy to sit to him for his picture of Zenelophon,
and the prosaic fact that I had not money in my pocket to travel
with; for it was part of the delicate method of Mr. D'Arcy to furnish
me with everything money could buy, but to give me no money. His
extravagant expenditure upon me in the way of dress, trinkets, and
every kind of luxury that could be placed in my room by Mrs. Titwing
appalled me. Mrs. Titwing's own bearing, when I spoke to her about
them, would have made one almost suppose that they grew there like
mushrooms; and if I mentioned them to Mr. D'Arcy he would tell me
that Mrs. Titwing was answerable for all that; he knew nothing about
such matters.
'What I should in the end have done as to leaving Hurstcote or
remaining there I don't know; but after a while something occurred to
remove my difficulties. One morning, when I was giving Mr. D'Arcy a
long sitting for his picture, a Gypsy friend of Sinfi's, belonging to
a family of Lees encamped two or three miles off, called to see her.
It was a man, Sinfi told me, whom I did not know, and he had gone
away without my seeing him.
'In the afternoon, when Sinfi and I were in the punt fishing
together, I could not help noticing that she was much absorbed in
thought.
'"This 'ere fishin' brings back old Wales, don't it?" she said.
'"Yes," I said, "and I should love to see the old places again."
'"You would?" she said; and her excitement was so great that she
dropped her fishing-rod in the river. "Jake Lee has been tellin' me
that our people are there, all camped in the old place by Bettws y
Coed. I told him to write to my daddy--Jake can write--and tell him
that I'm goin' to see him."
'"But you already knew they were there, Sinfi; you told me. What
makes you so suddenly want to go?"
'"That's nuther here nor there. I do want to go. Why can't you go
with me?"
'"I should much like it," I said, "but it's impossible."
'"Why? You can come back to Mr. D'Arcy again."
'"But, Sinfi," I said, "how are we to travel without money? I have
not a copper."
'"Ah, but I've got gold balansers about me, and they're better nor
copper."
'"Dear Sinfi!" I said, "I'd rather borrow of you than any one in the
world."
'"Borrow!" said she,--"all right! Now we shall have to speak to Mr.
D'Arcy about it. It'll be like drawin' one o' his teeth partin' with
you."
'When I next saw Mr. D'Arcy I found that Sinfi had already spoken to
him about our project. He seemed very reluctant for me to leave him,
although I promised him that I would return.
'"It is a strange fancy of Sinfi's, Miss Wynne," said he, "and a very
disconcerting one to me; but I feel that it must be yielded to.
Whatever can be done to serve or even gratify Sinfi Lovell, it is my
duty and yours to do."
'Mr. D'Arcy always spoke of Sinfi in this way. She seems to have done
something of a peculiarly noble kind for him and for me too, but what
it is I have tried in vain to discover.
'And a few days after this we started for Wales.
'Oh, Henry, I wonder whether any one who is not Welsh-born can
understand my delight as we passed along the railway at nightfall and
I first felt upon my cheek the soft rich breath of the Welsh meadows,
smelling partly of the beloved land and partly of the beloved sea.
"Yr Hen Wlad, yr Hen Gartref!" I murmured when at Prestatyn I heard
the first Welsh word and saw the first white-washed Welsh cottage.
From head to foot I became a Welsh girl again. The loveliness of
Hurstcote Manor seemed a dull, grey, far-away house in a dream. But
if I had known that I should also find you, my dear! If I had dreamed
that I should find Henry!'
And then silence alone would satisfy her. And Snowdon was speaking to us
both.