‘May I not see you from the dark wood?’ said Brion; and ‘I forbid you to come with me,’ she answered, and walked on. Nevertheless, he followed her at a distance; when, nearing the fringe of the copse on its east side, what was his surprise to see her already mounted and riding away upon a little ass, which had apparently been tethered there awaiting her return all the time. She never once looked round, but, skirting the moat, vanished in the direction of the moor. CHAPTER IX. TRANSFORMATION A wonderful brief episode, as poignant as it had been evanescent! Who was she? The dolefuller spirit was all forgotten by Brion for the time being in the glamour engendered of that soft and radiant apparition. So were forgotten the loneliness, the desolation, the dreary emptiness of his existence. He dreamt of her by day and he dreamt of her by night. Would he ever see the dear subject of his dreams again? His longing was so great he could not but believe it must be assuaged. He had thought he had taken but light stock of his vision when in its presence; now, apart from it, he remembered its every tone and feature. Perhaps he exaggerated its beauty. She was a pretty girl, a little of the slumberous type, with a soft white skin as faintly flushed at the cheeks as if a rose had flicked them; but nothing transcendent--only warmly human. She lacked, if anything, on the side of animation; even when pursued, she had not fled like a willing doe, feeling a joy in motion; she had been easily captured. But there were the eyebrows, straight umber pencillings, so many shades darker than the hair where it winged loosely back under the shadow of the little broad-brimmed hat, with its roll of gray-green taffeta; and there were the eyes that sheltered under them, blue sleepy children full of love. They were enough in memory for Brion, upon whom they had wrought the transformation which ends the rough and tumble pantomime of boyhood. He was harlequin henceforth, and she the elusive passion-flower of his pursuit. Judge him with gravity. Not yet sixteen--perhaps, but for his reserved disposition and solitary life, the transformation had been longer delayed, and had burned with a less romantic intensity when it arrived. But this vision had come upon him at an emotional pass, when to the melancholy of his days was added the depression of a morbid superstition. It had been the revelation of a sweet humanness, opening like a flower in the midst of that dark enigma, which had taken him like health out of sickness. Whence had she come, and why been attracted to that haunted spot? Thinking of her, shadowy and indistinct in her gray cloak and kirtle, he did not wonder that, accepting the association of the place, she had appeared to him a spirit until her voice had dispelled the illusion. It had been a soft voice, which no excitement could lift to unmusicalness. What would he give to hear it once more and addressed in kindness to himself?