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THE day had opened sunnily, but
one of those sudden fogs which
blow from the sea, had drifted in,
and hung over the town like a pall
of smoke. It caught at the sharp
spires and trailed along the flat
roofs. At intervals, a gleam of
light played through the funeral
folds. I thought the place was burning: it had a
disagreeable habit of catching on fire periodically.
A history of the town would involve a series of
conflagrations.

As I crossed the bridge, the cloud of fog grew
darker and heavier, pressing down on the houses.

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The boom of a large bell broke sullenly through
the air. It was tolling.

Something in the sound arrested me, nor me
alone, for a decrepit old man, driving a yoke of
oxen, stopped in the middle of the bridge, and
listened.

“Is it a fire?” I asked, walking at his side.
“A fire in town?”

“Ay, ay,” returned the man, vacantly, like a
deaf person; “for old Mrs. Weston, or Capt'n
Roylstone's child. I dunno which.”

“Cecil Roylstone!”

“Ay; she's bin dyin' this six month.”

“Dead?”

Dead, said the bell.

The bridge reeled under my feet.

“No, old man! you lie to me.”

“Ay, ay,” he said, musingly, “misfortune kind
o' follows some families. Only last fall her father
was wrecked right off Gosport Light here, in sight
o' land.”

I have a dim impression of intending to hurl

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him into the mill-dam, among the slippery eelgrass;
but as I glanced up I beheld Cecil quietly
walking at the farther end of the bridge.

She turned and beckoned me.

Loosening the old man's arm, I hastened after
Cecil, who moved leisurely down the hill, and
took the road that made a détour by the house.

“Cecil!”

But she glided on with unaltered gait.

“She will stop at the porch,” I thought; but
no; Dr. Molineux was standing in the door-way.
He hailed me as I hurried by.

“Well, where now, Mr. Lynde?”

“I'll return presently. I wish to speak with
the lady who has just passed.”

“Lady?” said the Doctor, eyeing me anxiously.
“Nobody has passed here this half-hour — no
lady, surely.”

“What!” I exclaimed, halting with amazement
at such a barefaced falsehood, “did not that
lady” — pointing to Cecil, who had paused at a

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bend in the road — “did not that lady just pass
within two yards of you?”

And I looked at the Doctor severely.

“I see no one,” replied the Doctor, following
the direction of my finger.

It had been my opinion for sometime that my
poor friend was deranged. This, coupled with
the fact that I once caught him in his sanctum
reading Neville on Insanity, was conclusive.

“I see no one,” he repeated.

“Then you must be blind, or stupid.”

I instantly repented of my brusqueness. Surely,
his infirmity was no fault of his. So I approached
him, and said kindly,

“My dear doctor, you should at once make
your situation known to your friends. You really
should.”

With which words I left him.

Dr. Molineux stared at me.

There stood Cecil. The June air drew back
the clustered coils of hair that fell over her
shoulders, and I then first noticed the unearthly

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pallor of her face. It was like a piece of pure
Carrara marble.

Cecil seemed to smile upon me imploringly, as
she turned into a briery path which branched off
from the highway, and led to that tract of woodland
which I mentioned in describing the location
of my dwelling. I followed.

Her pace now became accelerated. It was
with difficulty that I could keep the flying white
dress in sight.

On the verge of the forest she paused, and
faced me with a hectic light in her eyes. It was
but for an instant, then she plunged into the
dense wood.

An agonizing fancy occurred to me. I connected
Cecil's wild look with the still deep ponds
which lay within the shadow of the vast woodland.
The thought gave wings to my feet; I
darted after her like an arrow, tearing myself on
the vines and briers that stretched forth a million
wiry fingers to impede my progress.

We were nearing the largest pond in the wood

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Unless Cecil should alter her course, that would
prevent farther flight.

This circular piece of water lay, as it were, in
an immense green basin, the banks on every side
sloping to the edge of the pond, where the
cardinal-flowers bent in groups, staring at the
reflection of their flushed faces. At the belt of
maples enclosing the sheet of water, Cecil stopped
irresolutely. I would have clasped her in my
arms, but she escaped me, and ran swiftly toward
the pond. Then I heard a splash not so loud as
would be made by dropping a pebble into the
water. I leaped half-way down the slope.

Cecil had disappeared.

Near the bank, a circle in the pond widened,
and widened, and was lost in space. A single
silver bubble floated among the tangled weeds
that fringed the lip of the shore, and as I
looked, this bubble opened, and out of it indolently
rose a superb white Water-Lily.

It was no use to look for Cecil — there she
was!

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“You had better come home now,” said Dr.
Molineux, touching me on the shoulder.

When we reached the main-road, a funeral was
passing along slowly, slowly.

People sometimes smile, half-incredulously, when
I tell them these things: then I point to that
white flower, there, in the glass globe.

p448-052

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