Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/221

Rh fairy spinning wheels. She imagined the tiny figures sitting there among the ferns spinning. Whiz! whiz! whiz! What were they spinning? Over her face came spiders' webs, blown by the wind,—fine silk, floating from place to place in the breeze—lying on her nervous, bruised forehead like ropes. She brushed them aside.

"You will not bind me," she said; "spin as you may, I will follow him for ever."

She started running again; and ran gasping and stumbling after the strange voice for hours. Her dress was torn half away, her hands and feet red with her rough travelling, her brain was hot and mad with weariness and despair, her breath came in harsh sobs through the quiet of the night.

Now she would say, "I hate you; you are cruel." And again, "I love you; wait for me; I love you."

Suddenly again, close beside her, came the voice, "Follow me, Eileen."

"I follow you till death." She staggered aside off the little foot-track across the bog. In a moment she felt herself caught; something cool, and soft, and strong was dragging her down.

"Is it you, Alanna?" she gasped but got no answer, and was too tired to wonder. She was