FullReads

“‘I thought you had forgotten me,’ she said, nodding as if in answer to my thought. ‘The night was so late–our one night of the year! How my heart rejoiced when I heard your dear voice singing the song I know so well! Kiss me–my lips are cold!’

“Cold indeed they were–cold as the lips of death. But the warmth of my own seemed to revive them. They were now tinged with a faint color, and in her cheeks also appeared a delicate shade of pink. She drew fuller breath, as one who recovers from a long lethargy. Was it my life that was feeding her? I was ready to give her all. She drew me to the table and pointed to the viands and the wine.

“‘Eat and drink,’ she said. ‘You have traveled far, and you need food.’

“‘Will you eat and drink with me?’ said I, pouring out the wine.

“‘You are the only nourishment I want,’ was her answer.’ This wine is thin and cold. Give me wine as red as your blood and as warm, and I will drain a goblet to the dregs.’

“At these words, I know not why, a slight shiver passed through me. She seemed to gain vitality and strength at every instant, but the chill of the great room struck into me more and more.

“She broke into a fantastic flow of spirits, clapping her hands, and dancing about me like a child. Who was she? And was I myself, or was she mocking mo when she implied that we had belonged to each other of old? At length she stood still before me, crossing her hands over her breast. I saw upon the forefinger of her right hand the gleam of an antique ring.

“‘Where did you get that ring?’ I demanded.

“She shook her head and laughed. ‘Have you been faithful?’ she asked. ‘It is my ring; it is the ring that unites us; it is the ring you gave me when you loved me first. It is the ring of the Kern–the fairy ring, and I am your Ethelind–Ethelind Fionguala.’

“‘So be it,’ I said, casting aside all doubt and fear, and yielding myself wholly to the spell of her inscrutable eyes and wooing lips. ‘You are mine, and I am yours, and let us be happy while the hours last.’

“‘You are mine, and I am yours,’ she repeated, nodding her head with an elfish smile. ‘Come and sit beside me, and sing that sweet song again that you sang to me so long ago. Ah, now I shall live a hundred years.’

“We seated ourselves on the ottoman, and while she nestled luxuriously among the cushions, I took my banjo and sang to her. The song and the music resounded through the lofty room, and came back in throbbing echoes. And before me as I sang I saw the face and form of Ethelind Fionguala, in her jeweled bridal dress, gazing at me with burning eyes. She was pale no longer, but ruddy and warm, and life was like a flame within her. It was I who had become cold and bloodless, yet with the last life that was in me I would have sung to her of love that can never die. But at length my eyes grew dim, the room seemed to darken, the form of Ethelind alternately brightened and waxed indistinct, like the last flickerings of a fire; I swayed toward her, and felt myself lapsing into unconsciousness, with my head resting on her white shoulder.”

Here Keningale paused a few moments in his story, flung a fresh log upon the fire, and then continued:

“I awoke, I know not how long afterward. I was in a vast, empty room in a ruined building. Rotten shreds of drapery depended from the walls, and heavy festoons of spiders’ webs gray with dust covered the windows, which were destitute of glass or sash; they had been boarded up with rough planks which had themselves become rotten with age, and admitted through their holes and crevices pallid rays of light and chilly draughts of air. A bat, disturbed by these rays or by my own movement, detached himself from his hold on a remnant of moldy tapestry near me, and after circling dizzily around my head, wheeled the flickering noiselessness of his flight into a darker corner. As I arose unsteadily from the heap of miscellaneous rubbish on which I had been lying, something which had been resting across my knees fell to the floor with a rattle. I picked it up, and found it to be my banjo–as you see it now.

“Well, that is all I have to tell. My health was seriously impaired; all the blood seemed to have been drawn out of my veins; I was pale and haggard, and the chill–Ah, that chill,” murmured Keningale, drawing nearer to the fire, and spreading out his hands to catch the warmth–” I shall never get over it; I shall carry it to my grave.”