The girl and her four-footed companion walked on lovingly together beneath the broad light of the moon, conversing to each other in their own peculiar way.
They had now mounted the steep ridge of the heath that commanded a fine view of the ocean, which lay heaving and gleaming like molten silver against the horizon, sending up a deep, mysterious voice through the stillness of the night.
How grand it would have appeared to Dorothy at any other time, for her soul, simple and innocent as that of a little child, was steeped in the poetry of nature, which the Divine Mother alone whispers to the good and pure of heart. Now, the mournful music made by those coming and retreating waves, breaking the death-like silence which reigned around, filled her mind with a chilling dread.
She was fast approaching the deep hollow where her mother died, and the terrible words that had dropped from Joe Barford, that it was haunted by her ghost, rushed into her mind, filling it with an ungovernable fear.
"What if she should see her apparition?" She stopped—irresolute what to do. Her own shadow in the moonlight made her start and scream. She tried to run past the spot, which lay in deep shadow to the right, but her feet seemed chained to the earth, and her eyes, as if under a terrible fascination, were fixed upon the clump of furze that crowned the little ridge above, that looked so black and shadowy when all around was bright as day.
While she stood, pale with horror, her eyes wide open, her quivering lips apart, the white teeth chattering together, and her limbs relaxed and trembling, a low wailing sound crept through the purple heath, the furze bushes shivered as if instinct with life, and the dog crawled to her feet moaning piteously.
Dorothy tried to rouse herself, to break, by speaking to the dog, the horrible spell in which her senses were bound up, but not a sound could she utter. In desperation she turned her head from the haunted spot.
She saw, what to her frenzied eye appeared a slight figure, shrouded in mist, through which the moon-beams flickered and played slowly, flitting along her path.
Again that wild unearthly sound rustled among the bushes, and the dog broke out into a long dismal howl. A cry, which heard, even at noon day, seldom fails to blanch the manliest cheek. Dorothy heard it not—with a sobbing moan she sank to the ground insensible to fear, or aught else beneath the wide canopy of heaven.
Pincher nestled close to his fainting mistress, hiding his shaggy head upon her breast.