What ... had she seen him? He flushed there in the shadow, and words rose to his lips. Then he was silent, for she spoke again:
"I hate her ... I hate her ... not for herself, no, no, no ... but because she has taken you from me. Why does Ynys have you, all of you, when I have loved you all along? None of us knew any thing—none, till last Noël. Then we knew; only, neither you nor Ynys knew that I loved you as a soul in hell loves the memory of its earthly joy."
Strange words, there in that place, at that hour; but far stranger the passionless voice in which the passionate words were uttered. Bewildered, Alan leaned forward, intent. The words had waned to a whisper, but were now incoherent. Fragmentary phrases, irrelevant words, what could it all mean?
Suddenly an idea made him start. He moved slightly, so as to catch the full flood of a moonbeam as it fell on Annaik's face.
Yes, he was right. Her eyes were open, but were fixed in an unseeing stare. For the first time, too, he noted that she was clad simply in a long dressing-gown. Her feet were bare, and were glistening with the wet they had gathered; on her lustrous hair, nothing but the moonlight.
He had remembered. Both Annaik and Ynys had a tendency to somnambulism, a trait inherited from their father. It had been cured years ago, he had understood. But here—here was proof that Annaik at any rate was still subject to that mysterious malady of sleep.
That she was absolutely trance-bound he saw clearly. But what he should do—that puzzled, that bewildered him.
Slowly Annaik, after a brief hesitancy when he fancied she was about to awake, moved forward again.
She came so close that almost she brushed against him; would have done so, indeed, but that he was hidden from contact as well as from sight by the boughs of the yew, which on that side swept to the ground.
Alan put out his hand. Then he withdrew it. No, he thought, he would let her go unmolested, and, if possible, unawaked: but he would follow her, lest evil befell. She passed. His nerves thrilled. What was this strange emotion, that gave him a sensation almost as though he had seen his own wraith? But different ... for, oh—he could not wait to think about that, he muttered.