"Didn't ye hear it?" she asked.
A sudden chill crept through the young man's blood,—there was something so wan and mournful in her expression.
"Dear Priscilla, you are dreaming! Hear what?"
She lifted one brown wrinkled hand with a gesture of attention.
"The crying of the child!" she answered—"Crying, crying, crying!
Crying for me!"
Robin held his breath and listened. The wind had for the moment lessened in violence, and its booming roar had dropped to a moaning sigh. Now and again there was a pause that was almost silence, and during one of these intervals he fancied—but surely it was only fancy!—that he actually did hear a faint human cry. He looked at Priscilla questioningly and in doubt,—she met his eyes with a fixed and solemn resignation in her own.
"It's as I tell you," she said—"My time has come! It's for me the child is calling—just as she used to call whenever she wanted anything."
Robin rose slowly and moved a step or two towards the door. The storm was gathering fresh force, and heavy rain pattered against the windows making a continuous steely sound like the clashing of swords. Straining his ears to close attention, he waited,—and all at once as he stood in suspense and something of fear, a plaintive sobbing wail crept thinly above the noise of the wind.
"Priscilla! … Priscilla!" There was no mistaking the human voice this time—and Priscilla got up from where she sat, though trembling so much that she had to lean one hand on the table to steady herself.
"Ye heard THAT, surely!" she said.