“I am persuaded that this is very wicked. I was induced to consent against my sense of right,” murmured Lydia, her blue eyes swimming in tears. She was so deliciously timid and gentle that in his efforts to reassure her du Chesne was betrayed into several trifling follies; but her scruples were not sufficiently urgent to induce her to relinquish her intentions, and she returned from the interview radiant and flushed. It had finally come to Diane’s turn. The shade of the trees was excessively dense, and for an instant the French girl stood confused by the prevailing obscurity and the air of unreality in which all things seemed to be wrapped. Presently she perceived the witch, with a long wand in her hand, standing before a fountain of water. She was speaking rapidly in her native tongue, her voice rising and falling in a weird, monotonous recitative, a strange fantastic incantation in which distant voices appeared to join, rendered more impressive by the perfect stillness of the forest. She could hear sounding and re-echoing a slow, solemn chant, dreamy and plaintive, redolent of mystery and melancholy—long-drawn sighs, the whisper of angels’ voices, the song of the winds, all those magical accents that captivate imagination. Then there was a change. Quick and bright came broken notes, rising to a mad, reckless gaiety that set the blood aflame; then mournful melody like the autumn wind moaning in the branches, deepening and still deepening; anon rising into the flourish of trumpets on the battle-field, and ending in a funeral hymn floating through the dim aisles of some vast cathedral. It was like the entrance into dream-life, for those enchanted strains embodied all the extremes of human joy and suffering, aspiration and yearning. As she listened, the witch’s decrepit form expanded, acquiring size, height and dignity; the crafty, sensual features gained a strange power and majesty. A sudden sense of mystery, of dominant and all but overpowering force, took possession of Diane. Every thought of her heart, to the very depth of her being, seemed familiar to this influence and responsive to its command. She shivered with an excited desperation of feeling, of mingled desire and apprehension, of attraction and repulsion. A rich, heavy perfume, resembling the fragrance of incense, filled the air, and a thick cloud hung over the large basin of water which stood before her. Obeying an imperious gesture of the Indian woman, the girl advanced and bent over the basin.