As Eric looked up with hopeless eyes, he saw how the beautiful creature swooped down quite close, covering the lovely vision with its large soft wings; and when it rose again, like foam against the darkening sky, Gundian espied upon the heart of the maiden the magic diamond, shining as if all her love were a last time bursting from her breast in mystic rays of enchantment.
Night came down and still Eric knelt beside his shattered happiness. All about him the fires burned and crackled, and the dismal chants of the gypsies rose like curses to the heavens.
The wondrous face of the sleeper lived again in the glowing shine, but Eric did not see this illusive light of life; when he looked up the fires had burnt out; the gypsies had gone to rest.
The night had laid its darkness over the frowning solitude; no star shone in the sky; the only spot of brightness was the twinkling diamond that glowed there on Stella's bosom, where Eric had awakened her soul with his first burning kiss of love!
XXVI
The grey wind weeps, the grey wind weeps, the grey wind weeps.
Dust on her breast, dust on her eyes,
The grey wind weeps.
Fiona Macleod.
Next day her grave was dug, there, upon that endless plain of silence. Eric had strewn the gaping hole with a lining of withered leaves, gathered from the weeping forest.