All beauty of form had completely passed away, and now Gwerfyl saw her handsome husband in the arms of a very hag; hollow-cheeked, toothless, almost fleshless, with restless shifty eyes, and grey elf-locks like the serpents of Medusa; a hag beyond all description hideous: and her long, lean, shrivelled arms she wound lovingly and triumphantly around him. Her eyes gleamed like two live coals as he kissed her wildly and passionately from time to time, the full blaze of the moonlight streaming upon both their forms.
Gwerfyl strove to pray, to cry aloud, to move. But her tongue refused its office, and her lips were powerless; all capability of volition had left her, and she was as it were rooted to the spot. A moment more, and a dark cloud came over the moon, causing a deeper shadow under the old oak tree. Then a shriek escaped her, and when again the moon shone forth on the green grass and the gnarled tree, Gwerfyl alone was there--her husband and the hag had disappeared. Neither was ever seen more. North Wales is the most primitive portion of the country, and it is there that such fancies and memories still linger longest; and such was the little family legend told me by Winifred Lloyd. I was thinking over it now, recalling the earnest expression of her bright soft face and intelligent eyes, and the tone of her pleasantly modulated voice, when she, half laughingly and half seriously, had related it, with more point than I can give it, while we sat in a corner and somewhat apart from every one--on the first night I met the Cressinghams--in a crowded London ballroom, amid the heat, the buzz, and crush of the season--about the last place in the world to hear a story of diablerie; and "the old time" seemed to come again, as I descended to the drawing-room, to meet her and Lady Estelle.
[CHAPTER VI.--THREE GRACES.]
Already having met and been welcomed by my host and his daughters, my first glances round the room were in search of Lady Estelle and her mother. About eighteen persons were present, mostly gentlemen, and I instinctively made my way to where she I sought was seated, idling over a book of prints. Two or three gentlemen were exclusively in conversation with her; Sir Madoc, who was now in evening costume, for one.
"Come, Harry," said he, "here is a fair friend to whom I wish to present you."
"You forget, Sir Madoc, that I said we had met before; Mr. Hardinge and I are almost old friends--the friends of a season, at least," said Lady Estelle, presenting her hand to me with a bright but calm and decidedly conventional smile, and with the most perfect self-possession.
"It makes me so very happy to meet you again," said I in a low voice, the tone of which she could not mistake.
"Mamma, too, will be so delighted--you were quite a favourite with her."
I bowed, as if accepting for fact a sentiment of which I was extremely doubtful, and then after a little pause she added,--
"Mamma always preferred your escort, you remember."