Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome. Gallizier Nathan

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      There was no immediate response.

      At last she said slowly:

      "You shall have it – a parting gift – "

      He seized her hands. They lay passively within his own.

      There was a great fear in his eyes.

      "I do not understand – "

      She loosened the roses from her hair and garb before she made reply. Silently, like dead leaves in autumn, the fragrant petals dropped one by one to earth. Hellayne watched them with weary eyes as they drifted to their sleep, then, as she held the last spray in her hand, gazing upon it she said:

      "When you gave them to me, Tristan, they were sweet and fresh, the fairest you could find. Now they have faded, perished, died – "

      He started to plead, to protest, to silence her, but she continued:

      "Ah! Can you not see? Can you not understand? Perchance," she added bitterly, "I was created to adorn the fleeting June afternoon of your life, and when this scarf is torn and faded as these flowers, let the wind carry it away, – like these dead petals at our feet – "

      She let fall the withered spray, but he snatched it ere it touched the ground.

      "I love you," he stammered passionately. "I love you! Love you as no woman was ever loved. You are my world – my fate – Hellayne! Hellayne! Know you what you say?" —

      She gazed at him, with eyes from which all life had fled.

      "I am another's," she said slowly. "I have sinned in loving you, in giving to you my soul. And even as you stood there and held me in your arms, it flashed upon me, like lightning in a dark stormy night – I saw the abyss, at the brink of which we stand, both, you and I." —

      "But we have done no wrong – we have not sinned," he protested wildly.

      She silenced him with a gesture of her beautiful hands.

      "Who may command the waters of the cataract, go here, – or go there? Who may tell them to return to their lawful bed? I have neither power nor strength, to resist your pleading. You have been life and love to me, all, – all, – and all this you are to-day. And therefore must we part, – part, ere it be too late – " she concluded with a wild cry of anguish, "ere we are both engulfed in the darkness." —

      And he fell at her feet as if stunned by a thunderbolt.

      "Do not send me away – " he pleaded, his voice choked with anguish. "Do not send me from you."

      "You will go," she said softly, deaf to his prayers. "It is the supreme test of your love, great as I know it is."

      "But I cannot leave you, I cannot go, never to see you more – " and he grasped the cool white hands of the woman as a drowning man will grasp a straw.

      She did not attempt, for the time, to take them from him. She looked down upon him wistfully.

      "Would you make me the mock of Avalon?" she said. "Once my lord suspects we are lost. And, I fear, he does even now. For his gaze has been dark and troubled. And I cannot, will not, expose you to his cruelty. You know him not as I do – "

      "Even therefore will I not leave you," he interposed, looking into the sweet face. "He has not been kind to you. His pride was flattered by your ready surrender, and your great beauty is but one of the many dishes that go to satiate his varied appetites. Of the others you know naught – "

      She gave a shrug.

      "If it be so," she said wearily, "so let it be. Nevertheless, I know whereof I speak. This thing has stolen over us like a madness. And, like a madness, it will hurl us to our doom."

      Though he had seen the dark, glowering face among the branches, he said nothing, not to alarm her, not to cause her fear and misgiving. He loved her spotless purity as dearly as herself. To him they were inseparable.

      His head fell forward on her hands. Her fingers played in his soft brown hair.

      "What would you have me do?" he said, his voice choked by his anguish.

      "Go on a pilgrimage to Rome, to obtain forgiveness, as I shall visit the holy shrines of Mont Beliard and do likewise," she said, steadying her voice with an effort. "Let us forget that we have ever met – that we have ever loved, – or remember that we loved – a dream." —

      "Can love forget so readily?" he said, bitter anguish and reproach in his tones.

      She shook her head.

      "It is my fate, – for better – or worse – no matter what befall. As for you – life lies before you. Love another, happier woman, one that is free to give – and to receive. As for me – "

      She paused and covered her face with her hands.

      "What will you do?" he cried in his overmastering anguish.

      A faint, far-off voice made reply.

      "I shall do that which I must!"

      He staggered away from her. She should not see the scalding tears that coursed down his cheeks. But, as he turned, he again saw the dark and glowering face, the brow gloomy as a thunder-cloud, of the Count de Laval. But again it was not he. It was the black-garbed, lithe stranger, the companion of the hunchback, who was regarding Hellayne with evil, leering eyes.

      He wanted to cry out, warn her, entreat her to fly. —

      But it was too late.

      Like a bird that watches spellbound the approach of the snake, Hellayne stood pale and trembling – her cheeks white as death – her eyes riveted on the evil shape that seemed the fiend. But he, Tristan, also was encompassed by the same spell. He could not move – he could not cry out. With a bound, swift and noiseless as the panther's, he saw the sinewy stranger hurl himself upon Hellayne, picking her up like a feather and disappear in the gloom of the forest.

      With a cry of horror, bathed from head to foot in perspiration, Tristan started from his slumber.

      The moonbeams flooded the chamber. The soft breeze of the summer night stole through the open casement.

      With a moan as of mortal pain he sat up and looked about.

      Was he indeed in Rome?

      Had it been but a dream, this echo of the past, this visualized parting from the woman he had loved better than life?

      Was he indeed in Rome, to do as she had bid him do, not in the misty, flower-scented rose-gardens of Avalon in far Provence? —

      And she – Hellayne – where was she at this hour?

      Tristan stroked his clammy brow with a hot, dry hand. For a moment the memories evoked by the magic wand of the God of Sleep seemed to banish all consciousness of the present. He cast a fleeting, bewildered glance at the dim, distant housetops, then fell back among his cushions, his lips muttering the name of her who had filled his dream with her never-to-be-forgotten presence, wondering and questioning if they would ever meet again. Thus he tossed and tossed.

      After a time he became still.

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