A Spinner in the Sun

Upon the left, as she walked, the road was bordered with elms and maples, stretching far back to the hills. The woods were full of unsuspected ravines and hollows, queer winding paths, great rocks, and tiny streams. The children had called it the enchanted forest, and played that a fairy prince and princess dwelt therein.

The childhood memories came back to Evelina with a pang. She stopped to wipe away the tears beneath her veil, to choke back a sob that tightened her throat. Suddenly, she felt a presentiment of oncoming evil, a rushing destiny that could not be swerved aside. Frightened, she turned to go back; then stopped again.

From above, on the upper part of the road, came the tread of horse's feet and the murmur of wheels. Her face paled to marble, her feet refused to move. The heart within her stood portentously still. With downcast eyes she stood there, petrified, motionless, like a woman carved in stone and clothed in black, veiled impenetrably in chiffon.

At a furious pace, Anthony Dexter dashed by, his face as white as her chiffon. She had known unerringly who was coming; and had felt the searing consciousness of his single glance before, with a muttered oath, he had lashed his horse to a gallop. This, then, was the last; there was nothing more.

The sound of the wheels died away in the distance. He had the pearls, he had seen her, he knew that she had come back. And still she lived.

Clear and high, like a bugle call, a strain of wild music came from the enchanted forest. Evelina threw back her head, gasping for breath; her sluggish feet stirred forward. Some forgotten valour of her spirit leaped to answer the summons, as a soldier, wounded unto death, turns to follow the singing trumpets that lead the charge.

Strangely soft and tender, the strain came again, less militant, less challenging. Swiftly upon its echo breathed another, hinting of peace. Shaken to her inmost soul by agony, she took heed of the music with the precise consciousness one gives to trifles at moments of unendurable stress. Blindly she turned into the forest.

"What was it?" she asked herself, repeatedly, wondering that she could even hear at a time like this. A bird? No, there was never a bird to sing like that. Almost it might be Pan himself with his syrinx, walking abroad on the first day of Spring.

The fancy appealed to her strongly, her swirling senses having become exquisitely acute. "Pipes o' Pan," she whispered, "I will find and follow you." To see the face of Pan meant death, according to the old Greek legend, but death was something of which she was not afraid.