Where she sat, facing Oberon and Titania, she also faced that vague and lurid glow which showed where Fairyland was not. It was strange and weirdly troublesome to her. There was no such dismal shadow over any part of the Land of Wild Roses, and never before during her previous visits to the Violet Valley had she seen that brooding glare. But now its ugly glory oppressed her. Again and again it won her eyes from the happiness, and filled her heart with a growing burden of pain.
The owl had hooted. "June! June! June!" had come the king's, and then the universal, cry.
Chanticleer gave the note for the crowning.
The king rose, took the crown from the chief of the knights attending, and raised it that all of Fairyland might see. The singing and the laughter died away, and were hushed to a tremendous silence.
June flew towards Oberon, but suddenly stopped, and gave a cry of pain.
There was wild excitement at this. It belied experience, was an unkind precedent, made the long night's harmony suddenly crooked and awry. What ailed June that she should act so? The fairies with all their wisdom were impotent to read the mystery.
But soon June made it plain. She pointed her wand at the glow beyond, and cried:
"Evil! Evil!"
Every gnome, elf, fairy--all--turned to look at the vague red light over the far-away city. Oberon and Titania alone did not move, but gazed at June, solemnity in their eyes. They knew.
"June," said the king to her, "that light is the shame of Fairyland. No one of our glad company can live beneath it. It is the land of unhappy ghosts, where the shadows called men make and endure infinite ugliness, shame and pain. Slowly the fairies who would have loved and helped them have been driven away."