All the long morning I wandered about the house, scarcely knowing what I did or whither I went. Once I found myself in the room of silence, not remembering when I had come there or for what reason. The fact, merely, was impressed upon me by a gradual change in the nature of my sensations. Something seemed to be asking a question of me which I was striving and striving to answer. It didn’t distress me at first, for a nearer misery overwhelmed everything, but by and by its insistence pierced a passage through all dull obstacles, and the something took up its abode in me and reigned and grew. I felt myself yielding, yielding; and strove now to beat off the inevitable horror of the answer that was rising in me. I did not know what it was, or the question to which it was a response—only I saw that if I yielded to it and spoke it, I should die then and there of the black terror of its revelation.
I sprung to my feet with a cry, and saw, or thought I saw, Modred standing by the water wheel and beckoning to me. If I had strength to escape, it was enough for that and no more, for everything seemed to go from me till I found myself sitting at the foot of the stairs, with Jason looking oddly down upon me.
“I needn’t get up,” I said. “Modred isn’t dead, after all.”
I think I heard him shout out. Anyhow, I felt myself lifted up and carried somewhere and put down. If they had thought to restrain me, however, they should have managed things better; for I was up in a moment and out at the window. I had often thought one wanted only the will to forget gravity and float through the air, and here I was doing it. What a glorious sensation it was! I laughed to think how long I had remained like a reptile, bound to the plodding miserable earth, when all the time I had power to escape from myself and float on and on far away from all those heart-breaking troubles. If I only went very swiftly at first I should soon be too distant for them to track me, and then I should be free. I felt a little anxious, for there was a faint noise behind me. I strove to put on pace; if my limbs had responded to my efforts no bird could have outstripped me. But I saw with agony that the harder I fought the less way I made. I struggled and sobbed and clutched myself blindly onward, and all the time the noise behind grew deeper. If I pushed myself off with a foot to the ground I only floated a very little way now. Then I saw a railing and pulled myself along with it toilsomely, but some great pressure was in front of me and my feet slipped into holes at every step. Panting, straining, slipping, as if on blood—why! It was blood! I had to yield at last.
My passion of hope was done with. I lay in a white set horror, not daring to move or look. How deadly quiet the room was, but not for long, for a little stealthy rustle of the sheet beside me prickled through my whole being with its ghastly stirring. Then I knew it had secretly risen on its elbow and was leaning over and looking down upon me. If I could only perspire, I thought, my bonds would loosen and I could escape from it. But it was cunning and knew that, too, and it sealed all the surface of my skin with its acrid exhalations. Suddenly it clutched me in its crooked arms and bore me down, down to the room of silence. There was a sickening odor there and the covering of the wheel was open. Then, with a shudder, as of death, I thought I found the answer; for now it was plain that the great wheel was driven by blood, not water. As I looked aghast, straining over, it gave me a stealthy push and, with a shriek, I splashed among the paddles and was whirled down. For ages I was spun and beaten round and round, mashed, mangled, gasping for breath and choked with the horrible crimson broth that fed the insane and furious grinding of the wheel. At the end, glutted with torture, it flung me forth into a parching desert of sand, and, spinning from me, became far away a revolving disk of red that made the low-down sun of that waste corner of the world.
I was alone, now—always alone. No footsteps had ever trod that trackless level, nor would, I knew, till time was ended. I had no hope; no green memory for oasis; no power of speech even. Then I knew I was dead; had been dead so long that my body had crackled and fallen to decay, leaving my soul only, like the stone of a fruit, quick with wretched impulse to shoot upward but dreadfully imprisoned from doing so.
Sometimes in the world the massive columns of the cathedral had suggested to me a like sensation; a moral impress of weight and stoniness that had driven me to bow my head and creep, sweating away from their inexorable stolidity. Now I was built into such a body—more, was an integral part of it. Yet could my pinioned nerves never assimilate its passionless obduracy, but jerked and struggled in agony to be free. Oh, how divine is the instinct that paints heaven all light and airiness, and innocent forevermore of the sense of weight!
Suddenly I heard Zyp’s voice, singing outside in the world, and in a moment tears, most blessed, blessed tears, sprung from my eyes and I was free. The stone cracked and fell asunder, and I leaped out madly shrieking at my release.
She was sitting under a tree in a beautiful meadow and her young voice rose sweetly as she prinked her hat with daisies and yellow king-cups. She called me to her and gave me tender names and smoothed away the pain from my forehead with kisses and the cunning of her elfish brown hand.
“Come, drink,” she said, “and you will be better.”