She did not speak, and if his lips parted,
put her cold finger across them. Then she began to hum a soft sweet
monotony of song, vague and careless, very witching to hear. Farina
caught no words, nor whether the song was of days in dust or in flower,
but his mind bloomed with legends and sad splendours of story, while she
sang on the slate-block under sprinkled shadows by the water.
He had listened long in trance, when the Water-Lady hushed, and stretched
forth a slender forefinger to the moon. It stood like a dot over the
round tower. Farina rose in haste. She did not leave him to ask her aid,
but took his hand and led him up the steep ascent. Halfway to the castle,
she rested. There, concealed by bramble-tufts, she disclosed the low
portal of a secret passage, and pushed it open without effort. She paused
at the entrance, and he could see her trembling, seeming to wax taller,
till she was like a fountain glittering in the cold light. Then she
dropped, as drops a dying bet, and cowered into the passage.
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