Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/243



VER a long and narrow ridge, between two fields of grain, her foot slipping at every step, Lucy hurried, timidly, like a hunted deer. The waving ears beat against her breast, the monotonous chirping of the crickets sounded about her like the ticking of a hundred clocks. In the azure height unseen larks poured forth their clear tones; the air was astir with those dry odors which rise from the fields in July.

Around her were fields, broad fields. Their surfaces rippled in light waves, like a pale-yellow sea.

Lucy was hastening on in a dull, whirling stupor. It seemed to her as though there were an endless, swollen, terrible expanse in her soul. Somehody within it called out again: “The end!” That word hovered