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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed now, however.'

'Is she recovered now?'

'Mr. D'Arcy,' said Winnie, 'a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstance 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 j.a.pan? Why, it was actually copied into the little penny weekly thing that Mrs. t.i.twing 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 j.a.pan; 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. t.i.twing appalled me. Mrs. t.i.twing'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. t.i.twing 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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.

XIII

And what about Sinfi Lovell? In those supreme moments of bliss did Winifred and I think much about Sinfi? Alas, that love and happiness should be so selfish!

When at last the sound of Sinfi's crwth and song came from some spot a good way up the rugged path leading to the summit, it quite startled us.

'That's Sinfi's signal,' said Winnie; 'that is the way we used to call each other when we were children. She used to sing one verse of a Snowdon song, and I used to answer it with another. Upon my word, Henry, I had forgotten all about her. What a shame! We have not seen each other since we parted yesterday at the camp.'

And she sprang up to go.

'No, don't leave me,' I said; 'wait till she comes to us. She's sure to come quite soon enough. Depend upon it she is eager to see how her _coup de theatre_ has prospered.'

'I must really go to her,' said Winifred; 'ever since we left Hurstcote I have fallen in with her wishes in everything.'

'But why?'

'Because I am sure from Mr. D'Arcy's words that she has rendered me some great service, though what it is I can't guess in the least.'

'But what are really the plans of the day of this important Gypsy?'