THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE, 285

 

rode apart from the rest, on a milk-white steed.
They all went into the castle gates; but this
_ knight rode slowly and sadly behind the others,
with his head bowed on his breast.

Then the musical sounds were still, and the
castle and the plain seemed to wave in the
water. Next they quite vanished, and the well ©
grew dim, and then grew dark and black and
smooth as it had been before. Still she looked,
and the little well bubbled up with sparkling
foam, and so became still again, like a mirror,
till Jeanie could see her own face in it, and
beside her face came the reflection of another
face, a young man’s, dark, and sad, and
beautiful. The lips smiled at her, and then
Jeanie knew it was Randal. She thought he
must be looking over her shoulder, and she
leaped up with a cry, and glanced round.

But she was all alone, and the wood about
her was empty and silent. The light had gone
out of the sky, which was pale like silver, and
overhead she saw the evening star.

Then Jeanie thought all was over. She had
seen Randal as if it had been in a glass, and
she hardly knew him: he was so much older,
and his face was so sad. She sighed, and
turned to go away over the hills, back to
Fairnilee.

But her feet did not seem to carry her the
way she wanted to go. It seemed as if some-
thing within her were moving her in a kind of