Then a wonderful atmospheric effect was displayed. A breeze sprang up and blew aside some of the fog, and the rising moon shone down on a land of white shadows. It was impossible to tell what was real and what was unreal. On the other side of the lane stretched what appeared to be a vast lake, but might only be mist on the meadows; cloud-like masses shaped themselves into spectral forms and rolled away into the dim and nebulous distance, where they settled into weird domes and towers and walls, a veritable elf king's castle. It was so uncanny and silent and strange that Carmel was far more frightened than she had felt before. Old fairy tales of her childhood crowded into her mind, memories of phantoms and ghosts and goblins, the legends of Undine and the water sprites, the ballad of the Erl-King in the haunted forest. She had learnt the poem once, and she found herself repeating the words: "'Why trembles my darling? Why shrinks he with fear?' 'Oh Father, my Father! the Erl-King is near! The Erl-King with his crown and his beard long and white!' 'Oh! your eyes are deceived by the vapours of night!' * * * * * "'I love thee, I dote on thy face so divine! I must and will have thee, and force makes thee mine!' 'My Father! My Father! Oh hold me now fast! He pulls me, he hurts, and will have me at last!'" And as if that were not bad enough, the ballad of Lenore recurred to her: "How swift the flood, the mead, the wood, Aright, aleft are gone! The bridges thunder as they pass, But earthly sound is none. "Tramp, tramp, across the land they speed, Splash, splash, across the sea; 'Hurrah! the dead can ride apace, Dost fear to ride with me?'" By this time Carmel, alone among the magic mist and moonlight, had reached a state of fear bordering on panic. She longed for anything human, and would have embraced a cow if she had met one. Through the fog in front of her suddenly loomed something dark, and the sound of horse's hoofs rang on the road. A wild vision of Lenore's spectral bridegroom presented itself to her overwrought imagination, and she shrieked in genuine terror, and shrank trembling against the hedge. The rider of the horse dismounted, and slipping his wrist through the bridle, came towards her. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you hurt? Why, great Scott! It's never Carmel!" "Everard! Everard!" gasped Carmel, clinging desperately to his arm. "Oh! Thank Heaven it's you! I'm lost!" Everard comforted her for a while without asking any questions; then, when she had recovered calmness, he naturally wished to know why his pretty cousin was wandering in the country lanes by herself on a winter's evening. Man-like, he blamed the school instead of Carmel. "They ought to have taken better care of you!" he murmured. "Why didn't the mistress hold a roll-call, and count you all?"