Their scent comes rich and sickly?’ ‘A scaled and hooded worm.’
‘Oh, what’s that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?’
‘Oh, that’s a thin dead body, which waits the eternal term.’
‘Turn again, O my sweetest,—turn again, false and fleetest:
This beaten way thou beatest, I fear is hell’s own track.’
‘Nay, too steep for hill mounting; nay, too late for cost counting:
This downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.’
The dramatic force which appeared inherent in her gave indescribable expression to the song; she sang the words with a wild, strange enjoyment, as if she were rejoicing over some ruin she had caused. For the moment even Nat found himself to be excited to such a sensation of dread as he had never before experienced; but the little adventuress had only yielded to a passing impulse; in another instant she threw back her head and laughed.
‘And how do your patterns get on?’ she asked, coming closer to him, and bending over him so that her fingers touched his shoulder; ‘I am sure it is good of you to come evening after evening that I may teach you this stupid work which I cannot bear to do myself. Oh, my brother leaves me to be lonely every evening; if it were not for you I should go mad or die.’