Instead of in sleep, now his waking sight drank in the vision which was part of his living being. But although he had poured out every supplication and ardent prayer his mind could conceive, he never could imprison a single look that he knew was conscious of his presence.

She sometimes would talk, but more often she would play upon her beloved violin, and then Eric would feel that each drop of his blood was rushing through his veins like a mountain torrent; or he would be possessed by a frantic longing to be free of his body to soar with the music far up into heaven.

It would happen that she would take hold of his hand and lead him to places of strangest solitude, and there her visionary words would try to describe the marvellous things her brain was seeing.

He followed the flight of her extraordinary thoughts; but each day he was filled with deeper depression, knowing that never had she consciously looked at his face, never had she realized that it was an unusual companion who was now at her side, that she was alone with a being consumed by love.

She talked in a confiding voice as a child speaks to its mother, or as one that had the habit of conversing alone in the night.

The things she said, and conjured up before his eager mind, were saturated with such unheard-of sweetness that Eric lived in a world he had never known.

And so the days pa.s.sed one by one; the bluebells faded and died, and still Eric clung to the forlorn hope that Stella's eyes would suddenly open and see him at her side. The gypsies folded their tents and moved farther on, roaming from spot to spot.

Wherever they went Eric was always with them.

For hours he would walk in the dust of the roads, keeping pace with the bare feet of the woman he loved.

The falcon was always there, and still flew like a white banner before him, as it had done on the very first day. But now Eric no more followed the shine on its wings; he was following a lowly maiden who held his beating heart within her careless hand.

He pa.s.sed through many villages such as Radu had described: the savage dogs rushed out and surrounded their wandering procession, the maize-thatched cottages had their doors wide open, and it was true that the tall sunflowers could peep in at the tiny windows, and that the maidens sat upon the thresholds drawing their tireless needles through the snowy linen that lay in their laps.

The peasants looked at the earth-coloured travellers with glances of disdain; and seldom did a kindly welcome greet them as they came.

Only for Eric they made an exception, and more than one dark-eyed girl would have given much to keep him at her side.

Autumn was turning the leaves into glorious colours. The woods were a never-ending marvel of red, gold, and brown. On the freshly reaped maize-fields the Indian corn lay in small pyramids of ripest orange. The peasants sat about in groups singing the songs of harvest, whilst the early night did its best to hurry the glowing sunsets out of the flaming sky.

Always smaller grew the hope in our wanderer's heart, always more weary were the endless roads.

Stella still had her eyes turned upon things he could not see. He had not been able to make her grasp the fact that she had a stranger at her side.

Each day he brought her another wreath for her burnished tresses--a wreath that he wound with his artist fingers from whatever flowers he could find along his road.

They were becoming scarcer and rarer because of the descending autumn that lay like a hush over the tired world. He made them of pale-tinted crocuses that hung upon her forehead like tired sighs--he bound them with the brightest leaves of the season that resembled the spreading sunsets he so loved at the end of the day. Often he had plucked shining berries that surrounded her waxen brow like heavy drops of blood. And one day the wreath he brought her was all feathery and white, plaited with the fluffy ghosts of the wild clematis that climbs over rock and tree.

On a morning when the clouds hung heavy over their heads he pressed above her lovely face a garland of sloe-berries entwined with grey leaves of the weeping-willow; they fell about her delicate temples, touching her rounded cheeks with loving caresses as a mother's hand would do.

Once as she sat on a hard heap of stones, spent after the tramp of the day, he left her to glean from the barren fields ripe ears of corn that had been scattered by the reapers on their way.

He made them into a golden crown which he laid at her feet in the dust, looking into her eyes, trembling under the weight of his love.

And always he found some lowly plant which he plucked with the thought of bringing a smile to her lips. He even conjured into a circlet of silver the star-shaped thistles that grew amongst the wilting gra.s.s, and so that their p.r.i.c.kles should not wound her delicate skin, he lined it with soft green moss that lay close against her forehead, guarding it from the slightest scratch.

But the days when he found neither flower nor plant he felt like a beggar that dare not come before the face of his queen....

Often when the roving tribe had pitched their tents for the night, Gundian would go and sit beside the fire with old Zorka the witch, and he never wearied of the tales she told, listening, with interest that was always new, to the quaint words that fell from her lips.

Zorka's heart had made him her own, and she dearly loved to have him at her side; but never did she find the needed courage to urge him to relinquish his quest; yet, as the days rolled by, she feared more and more that the signs might really come true.

On a night when all was dark and still, the very old woman and the beautiful youth sat side by side looking into the leaping flames.

Zorka raised her careworn face and scanned his thinning cheeks, his sunken eyes, and the beautiful hands that were nervously clasped on his knee. Her old heart ached with fearful desire for all that could not be.

"Son, my son!" she suddenly cried, "ah that I could tear the stars from the sky and throw them before thy feet! Oh that I could drag down the rays of the moon and hide them all in thy breaking heart to stop thy longing! that I could draw out all the richness of the earth and give it to thee, so that thou shouldst be at peace! But thus it is the wide world over; we think we have reached our soul's desire, and then we stand before it empty of all our hope."

As she spoke, sweet sounds of music came floating out of the dark--the soft notes of a violin in which all the sorrow of the earth seemed concentrated beneath the rippling cadence of joy.

Eric covered his face with his hands, and Zorka felt the burning tears rise to her dim old eyes, but she brushed them hastily away with the back of her hand.

"Dear young one," she said, "what can I do for thee? Hast thou not told me that thou wast once a great artist with fairy fingers, and that thou didst come all this endless way through joy, sorrow, and danger, in search of a face ... and now.... Oh, I have guessed it since many a day thou hast found that face--but where is thy art?

"Crave not for what thou canst not have, but cling to that which G.o.d has given thee. If I get thee brush and colour wilt thou try and create that face for a second time? Create it so that all should wonder how human hands could ever have been able to paint so glorious a treasure. When we cannot have the thing itself we must try and grasp its shadow."

"Oh!" cried Eric, "my old master said that the thing is G.o.d's."

"I do not know," said old Zorka, "if we pray to the same G.o.d, thou and I. Human beings always need forms into which they press their worship, but I, who am old, can tell thee this: there is but one G.o.d for all, and each man shapes Him according to the depth and breadth of his own little soul.

"When we are children and play on the ground we are taught to call Him Father! When we grow up we long for Him as a friend, but if He keeps His smile for others we curse Him and turn our backs and say we do not believe He exists. But when grief and despair knock at our door, we long to feel Him near us once more, but we have lost our way. We grope in the dark, we hit our hands and our heads, we cry, and we moan, we stumble and fall till we are laid low in the dust.

"Then it is long till again we look up. Our hair is bleached, our backs are bent, our eyes are dim, and faltering our step; but gradually we see all things as they were meant to be--we have left hope far behind, all that shone and was sweet knows us no more; our way is without either light or shade, it is grey and smooth like the ocean after the storm has gone by.

"We believe that its colour will never be anything but grey; but one day a faint light spreads very far over the most distant horizon and our tired brain begins to perceive that that light is coming slowly towards us, slowly--slowly--till it reaches our heart ... and that light means peace that pa.s.seth all human understanding; peace, the ultimate promise of that G.o.d we had cast away; peace, the blessing of our snow-white hair, the last hope of our ended pilgrimage. But, my boy, wilt thou do as I bid, and create with thy hands the face thou lovest so well?"

"I cannot, I cannot," sobbed Eric, his face all convulsed with pain; "I have lost my art and lost my belief. I am now only one consuming pa.s.sionate desire."

"Dear one that I love," answered sadly the old nomad, "for what hast thou climbed so high if thou now wilt not look up? I tell thee that if thou wilt grasp the talent that belongs to thee thou shalt find a relief beyond all thou darest to hope.

"I have been reading the signs out of the wind-swept clouds, and I know that thus help will come to thee."

"Ah, but, Mother Zorka, tell me, will she ever look at me with eyes that see?"

"Her eyes do see, my son, and although thy face be the fairest my old brain has ever conceived, canst thou know if the vision her mind is for ever adoring is not of a beauty far beyond our dreams?

"Certain flowers are not there to be plucked.

"Why the great Being of the skies has brought thee through pain and danger, drawn thee into this distant land, to dash the full cup from thy thirsty lips, after having smilingly led thee so far--is a mystery I cannot explain.

"But dost realize what it would be if thou shouldst pluck the flower too soon and thy touch be too rough, and the petals fall fading to the ground; dost know how empty then thy hands would be?

"Do as I tell thee, make that heavenly face thy very own by drawing it with the artist hands thy G.o.d has given thee! I love thee well, but I have loved her longer than thee. If the day is to come when her heart shall open to earthly pa.s.sion, her eyes to the dear sight of thy face, let that day be blessed and hold it fast if thou canst.

"I shall only look on; for that is the weary lot of those who live in the past: but once more I tell thee, paint, oh, paint her face--the time may come when it will be too late!

"But now go to thy tent, for I am tired and the night is cold."

Eric rose sadly and threaded his way through the sleeping camp, past the fires that were burning low, past the patient groups of tired horses, till he reached his bed.

But Zorka sat still many an hour, following the shadowy road of her past, her dim eyes fixed upon the glowing ashes, speaking to the Being who rules our destinies, and asking over again the eternal, unanswered "Why?" looking up to the too distant sky which for ever keeps its mystery to itself.