the autumn of that year broke upon us with sobbing winds and wild, wet gusts of tempest laden with flying leaves. in the choked trenches, drowned grasses swayed and swung like torn skirt fringes of the meadows; in the woods, drenched leaves clung together and talked, through the lulls, of the devastation that was wrecking their aftermath of glory.
it had been blowing in soft, irresistible onrushes all one dank october day, and all day had i spent in the high woods that crown the gentle hills three or four miles to the southwest of the city. the air in the long, quiet glades was mystic with the smell of decay; the heels of vanishing forms seemed to twinkle from tangled bends of undergrowth as i approached them. then often, in going by a spot i could have thought lately tenanted, a sense would tingle through me as of something listening behind some aged trunk that stood back from my path.
gradually dark shut in, and i must needs thread my way among the trees, while some little show of light remained, if i did not wish to be belated in the dense thickets. it would not have troubled me greatly had this actually happened. to yield my tired limbs and wearier soul to some bed of moss set in the heart of an antique wood seemed a blessed and most restful thing to do. but the old man awaited me at home, and thither my duty must carry me.
i had traversed a darkling alley of leafage, treading noiseless on the spongy floor of it, and was coming out into a little lap of tree-inclosed lawn that it led to when i stopped in a moment and drew myself back with a start.
something was there before me—a fantastic moving shape, that footed the grass in a weird, sinuous dance of intricate paces, and waving arms, and feet that hardly rustled on the dead leaves. it was all wild, elfin; ineffably strange and unearthly. i felt as if the dead past were revealed to me, and that here i might lay down my burden and yield the poor residue of life to one last ecstasy.
dipping, swaying; now here, now there, about the dusky plat of lawn; sometimes motionless for an instant, so that its drooping skirts and long, loosened hair made but one tree-like figure of it; again whirling into motion, with its dark tresses flung abroad—the figure circled round to within a yard of where i was standing.
then in a loud, tremulous tone i cried “zyp!” and sprung into the open.
she gave a shriek, craned her neck forward to gaze at me, and, falling upon her knees at my feet, clasped her arms about me.
for a full minute we must have remained thus; and i heard nothing but the breathless panting of the girl.
“zyp,” i whispered at last, “what are you doing here, in the name of heaven?”
“i wanted to see you, renny. i have walked all the way from southampton. night came upon me as i was passing through the wood—and—and i couldn’t help it—i couldn’t help it.”
“this mad dancing?”
“i’m so unhappy. renny, poor zyp is so unhappy!”
“does this look like it?”
“the elves caught me. it was so lovely to shake off all the weight and the misery and the womanliness.”
“are you tired of being a woman, zyp?”
“tired? my heart aches so that i could die. oh, i hate it all! no, no, renny, don’t believe me! my little child! my little, little child! how can i have her and not be a woman!”
“get up, zyp, and let’s find our way out of this.”
“not till you’ve promised me. where can we talk better? the foolish people never dare to walk here at night. you love the woods, too, renny. oh, why didn’t i wait for you? why, why didn’t i wait for you?”
“come, we must go.”
“not till you’ve promised to help me.”
“i promise.”
she caught my hand and kissed it as she knelt; then rose to her feet and her dark eyes burned upon me in the gloom.
“you didn’t expect to see me?”
“how could i? least of all here.”
“it’s on the road from southampton. at least, if it isn’t, the woods drew me and i couldn’t help but go.”
“why have you come from southampton?”
“we fled there to escape him.”
“him? who?” yet i had no need to ask.
“that horrible man. oh, his white face and the eyes in it! renny, i think jason will die of that face.”
i remembered duke’s words and was silent.
“it comes upon us in all places and at all hours. wherever we go he finds means to track us and to follow—in the streets; in churches, where we sometimes sit now; at windows, staring in and never moving. renny,” she came close up against me to whisper in my ear, and put her arm round my neck like the zyp of old. perhaps she was half-changeling again in that atmosphere of woodland leafiness. “renny—once he tried to poison jason!”
“oh, zyp, don’t say that!”
“he did—he did. jason was sitting by an open window in the dark, and a tumbler of spirit and water was on the table by him. he was leaning back in his chair, as if asleep, but he was really looking all the time from under his eyelids. a hand came very gently through the window, pinched something into the glass, and went away again quite softly.”
“why didn’t jason seize it—call out—do anything that wasn’t abject and contemptible?”
“you don’t know how the long strain has told upon him. sometimes in the beginning he thought he must face it out, for life or death, and end the struggle. but he isn’t really brave, i think.”
“no, zyp, he isn’t.”
“and now it has gone too far. all his spirit is broken. he clings to me like a child. he sits with his hand in mine, staring and listening and dreadfully waiting. and that other doesn’t mean to kill him now, i think—not murder him, i mean. he sees he can do it more hideously by following—by only following and looking, renny.”
in a moment she bowed her head upon my arm and burst into a convulsive flood of crying. i waited for the first of it to subside before i spoke again. these, almost the only tears i had ever known fall from her, were eloquent of her change, indeed.
“oh!” she cried, presently, in a broken voice. “he didn’t treat me well at first—my husband—but this piteous clinging to me now—something chokes——” she flung her head back from me and wrenched with her hands at the bosom of her dress, as if the heart underneath were swollen to breaking. then she tossed up her arms and, drooping her head, once more fell to a passion of weeping.
“zyp,” i said, quietly, when she could hear me, “what is it you want me to do?”
“we want money, renny——” she gasped, still with fluttering sobs, drying her eyes half-fiercely as if in resentment of that brief self-abandonment. “he has no spirit to make it now as he used. we have escaped to southampton, intending to go abroad somewhere, and lose ourselves and be lost. we fled in a fright, unthinking, and now we can get no further. you’ll help us, renny, won’t you?”
“i’ll help you, zyp, now and always, if you need it—always, as far as it is possible for me to.”
“we don’t want much—enough to get away, that’s all. if he could only be free a little while, i think perhaps he might recover partly and be strong to seek for work.”
“it will take me a day or two.”
“so long? oh, renny!”
“i must go to london to raise it. i can’t possibly manage it otherwise.”
she gave a heavy forlorn sigh.
“i hope it won’t come too late?”
“you can trust me, dear, not to delay a minute longer over it than is absolutely necessary.”
“you are the only one i can always trust,” she said, with a little, wan, melancholy smile.
a sleek shine of moonlight was spreading so that i could see her face turned up to me.
“you will come on to the mill, zyp?”
“not now; it is useless. i hear my baby calling, renny.”
“but—what will you do?”
“walk back to southampton.”
“to-night?”
“part of the way, at least. when i get tired i shall sleep.”
“sleep? where?”
“under some tree or bush. where could i better?”
“zyp! you mustn’t. anything might happen to you.”
her face took a flash of scorn.
“to me—in the woods or the open fields? you forget who i am, renny.”
no insistence or argument on my part could alter her determination. return she would, then and there.
“well,” i said at last, hopeless of shaking her, “how shall i convey the money to you?”
“jason shall come and fetch it.”
“jason?”
“yes. i can’t leave the child again. besides, it will be better for him to move and act than sit still always watching and waiting.”
“very well, then. let him come when he likes. to-morrow i will get the money.”
she came and took my hand and looked up in my face. “good-by, you good man,” she said. “give me one kiss, renny.”
i stooped and touched her cheek with my lips.
“that is for the baby,” i said, “and god bless zyp and the little one.”
she backed from me a pace or two, with her dark eyes dreaming.
“did you think i could ever be like this, renny? i wonder if they will turn to me as they used?”
she dropped upon her knees before a little plant of yellow woundwort that grew beside a tree. she caressed it, she murmured to it, she gave it a dozen fond names in the strangest of elfin language. it did not stir. it remained just a quiet, drowsy woodland thing.
“ah!” she cried, leaping to her feet, “it’s jealous of the baby. what do i care?” she gave it a little slap with her hand. “wake up, you sulky thing!” she cried—“i’m going to tell you something. there’s no flower like my baby in all the world!”
