I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more over the broken ground brought me within view of the Well, and of the high boulder or rock from the foot of which the waters gushed brightly in the light of the moon.
She was there.
I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the rock, with her hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. I recognized her face as she looked up quickly, startled by the sound of my footsteps in the deep stillness of the night.
Was it the woman, or the apparition of the woman? I waited, looking at her in silence.
She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysterious sound that I had heard in the summer-house. It was the sound I had heard on the bridge when we first met in the dim evening light.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. “You here!” she went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable surprise. “What does this mean?”
“I am here,” I answered, “to meet you, by your own appointment.”
She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The moonlight shone full upon her face. There was terror as well as astonishment in her eyes while they now looked at me.
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “I have not seen you since you spoke to me on the bridge.”