Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 2 (1925-02).djvu/158

She lifted her face wildly from the old woman's shoulder.

"No, you will shut him out! I want the rain. Stay with me, Concetta; I am frightened."

"Yes—now my dear, dear lady, let me take you to your room, where you can lie in your bed and rest."

"No. I shall sleep here and you must sit beside me. I shall sit in the chair by the fire, for I am cold."

"Very well, and I will close the window for you."

"No, no! Leave it open, I say."

She caught the wrinkled arm in her long fingers. The old woman took her to her chair and muffled the dark shawl around her, then sat at a distance on a low bench; taking out some bit of hand-work she plied her fingers busily. Ermengarde kept her burning eyes upon the window, and little by little the rain seeped into her consciousness as it did through the elms outside. The feeling of it, the sound of it, permeated her, a film over her utter weariness; and beneath a certain trembling fear there was a warm sensation of nearness, the touch of loved hands. She closed her eyes.

"So I was only dreaming?"

She started at the touch of a hand on hers and opened her eyes quickly. Only Concetta's hand, wrinkled and hard! Where was she? Oh, yes, she had slept by the fire all night; and now there were ashes before her and the room was crossed by a bright bar of sunshine. The old woman was offering her something to eat. Today she did not have that old heavy wakening, knowing that little by little a dreadful knowledge would creep back into her consciousness. She woke in the full realization of it. Fayrian was dead. She had killed him. Then there had been rain, sweet and intimate, that refreshed her heart, and now sunshine that stretched like a warm hand into the room. The lute, the dagger, the book, those eloquent selves were no longer pitiful. They looked somehow as if they had been lately touched by him. The picture of his father that hung across from the tapestries, usually so solemn a face, had been changed by the sun, too: it looked years younger, like Fayrian himself, and a shadow falling near the lips made it look as if he were smiling sadly. Ermengarde was sad. It was good to be sad after the horrid weeks of stillness—good to grieve abundantly.

When Ermengarde had eaten, Concetta brought a comb and combed out the dull masses of her hair, then piled them up again with a great tortoiseshell pin.

"This morning I shall walk outside, Concetta."

"But last night's rain—the ground will be damp—"

"Today, somehow, I do not think that it will hurt me."

And she went out to walk in the light. As the full flood of sunshine struck her and she put her satin shoe into the damp grass, a warm soft wind flung itself about her shoulders, fluttering her black shawl. Arms, arms enfolding her—the wind was that! She rested herself against its force, closing her eyes.

"Fayrian! Fayrian!"

It whispered back to her and stirred uneasily, discontentedly; but always it touched, caressed. The dampness sank through her shoes as she walked in the grass, and as it melted through the light soles to her feet she shivered with pleasure—touch! Suddenly she wished to feel the grass with her naked feet, so she stripped off the shoes and walked with them in her hand. There was a kind of ecstasy in her contact with the ground. She caught her breath quickly.

"So he is there, too!"

With a rush of tenderness she pulled down a wet bough of blossoms so that it touched her face—kisses!