England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Love stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
The Well, as the doctor's instructions had informed me, was behind
the chapel. I waited for some minutes in front of the ruin, partly to
recover my breath after ascending the hill; partly, I own, to master
the nervous agitation which the sense of my position at that moment had
aroused in me. The woman, or the apparition of the woman--it might be
either--was perhaps within a few yards of the place that I occupied. Not
a living creature appeared in front of the chapel. Not a sound caught
my ear from any part of the solitary hill. I tried to fix my whole
attention on the beauties of the moonlit view. It was not to be done. My
mind was far away from the objects on which my eyes rested. My mind was
with the woman whom I had seen in the summer-house writing in my book.
I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more over the
broken ground brought me within view of the Well, and of the high
boulder or rock from the foot of which the waters gushed brightly in the
light of the moon.
She was there.
I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the rock, with her
hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. I recognized her face as
she looked up quickly, startled by the sound of my footsteps in the deep
stillness of the night.
Was it the woman, or the apparition of the woman? I waited, looking at
her in silence.
She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysterious sound that
I had heard in the summer-house. It was the sound I had heard on the
bridge when we first met in the dim evening light.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. "_You_ here!" she
went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable surprise. "What does this
mean?"
"I am here," I answered, "to meet you, by your own appointment."
She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The moonlight shone
full upon her face. There was terror as well as astonishment in her eyes
while they now looked at me.
"I don't understand you," she said. "I have not seen you since you spoke
to me on the bridge."
"Pardon me," I replied. "I have seen you--or the appearance of
you--since that time. I heard you speak. I saw you write."
She looked at me with the strangest expression of mingled resentment and
curiosity. "What did I say?" she asked. "What did I write?"
"You said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' You wrote, 'When the full moon
shines on Saint Anthony's Well.'"
"Where?" she cried. "Where did I do that?"
"In a summer-house which stands by a waterfall," I answered. "Do you
know the place?"
Her head sunk back against the rock. A low cry of terror burst from
her. Her arm, resting on the rock, dropped at her side. I hurriedly
approached her, in the fear that she might fall on the stony ground.
She rallied her failing strength. "Don't touch me!" she exclaimed.
"Stand back, sir. You frighten me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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