“I see nothing but hills,” she said. “I do not like to look; let us go back to the trees.”
She sat down again on the sunken boulder, where only a part of the space around and its spectral shadows was visible.
“I feel so sleepy,” she said. Doubtless the warmth made her drowsy as well as weariness. “I think I shall lie down.” She sat on the sward and leaned against the stone; Geoffrey felt the short grass, it was perfectly dry.
“If only I had something to wrap round you!” he said. “How foolish I have been! Mr. Fisher’s rug that was strapped on my horse would have been the very thing! I am so angry with myself—I ought to have thought of it.”
“But how could you anticipate?”
“At least, wrap your handkerchief about your neck.”
“I do not want it; it is too warm. But I will, as you wish me to.”
An idea suddenly occurred to him; he went on his knees and crawled right under the table-stone of the dolmen—into the tomb. She watched him with a sleepy horror of the place. In a minute he emerged triumphant.
“I have found it—this is it. It is a house built on purpose for you.”
“Oh, I hope not,” shuddering; “though, of course, we must all die.”
“Why—what do you mean?”
“That is a tomb.”
“A tomb!” laughing; “oh, yes, perhaps it was once, two thousand years ago, before Pisces became Aries.”
“I do not understand,” petulantly. “Do let me sleep.”
“I mean before the precession of the equinoxes had changed the position of the stars; it was so very long ago—”
“Please don’t talk to me.”
“But I want you to come in here.”
“In there! Impossible!”
“But do, Margaret; it is quite empty; only like a room. The ground inside is as dry as a floor, and the roof will shelter you from the night air, and, perhaps, save you from illness.”
“I couldn’t—no; please.”
“Well, just come and look.”
“I won’t—there!” quite decidedly.
“Margaret!”
He took her arm; notwithstanding her declaration, she rose and followed him. She did not resent his making her do it in that wild and desolate place; had he tried to compel her in civilisation, he would have failed. Once inside it, the Cave was not at all dreadful; she could sit upright, and, as he said, it was merely a chamber, open on one side. He then went to fetch the hurdles to make her a rough couch—it was with some thought of this that he had not burned them—knowing anything between the sleeper and the bare ground will prevent stiffness or chill. He saw that the moon had illuminated a valley on the right hand, and walked to the edge, thinking that perhaps a cottage might be in the hollow. There was nothing, but this caused him to be a little longer gone. Now Margaret was just in that state between waking and sleeping when shadows take shape and the silence speaks, nor could she forget that the Cave had once been a tomb. She looked out and involuntarily uttered a cry. Among the boulders stood a shapeless whiteness—a form rather than a thing, in the midst of the circle. She covered her face with her hands. Geoffrey returning heard the cry, and came running.
“What! How fortunate!” he exclaimed. She looked again—it was the grey, Geoffrey’s horse; in her nervous dread she had not recognised it in the shadow.
“This is fortunate,” he said, ignoring her alarm. “The poor fellow must have hobbled after us—perhaps not so very far, as we went round in a circle. Why, this must have been what we heard—the heavy steps, don’t you remember? I can make a couch now,”—unstrapping the rug, and removing the saddle, and also from Kitty. Then he took the thatched hurdle, and placed it on the floor of the Cave, straw uppermost. It was perfectly clean; the straw bleached white by the wind of the hills. The saddles made a rude support for her shoulders. She stood up, and he wound the rug—which was a large one—about her till she was swathed in it, and a kind of hood came round her head. She reclined upon the hurdle, leaning against the saddles; and lastly, at his wish, adjusted the handkerchief lightly over her face, so that she might breathe easily, and yet so as to keep the night air away. Then he placed the second hurdle, which was not thatched, across the open side of the Cave, partly closing it like a door, but not too completely.
“Why, I am quite comfortable,” she said. “Only it is too warm.”
“That is a good fault; good night.”
“Good night.” A long pause.
“Geoffrey—where are you?”
“Sitting by the door of your chamber.”
“You have been very kind.”
“I have done nothing.”
“You have no shelter; what shall you do?”
“I do not mind in the least; you forget I have been used to the bush.” A second long silence.
“Geoffrey!” very gently.
“I am here, dear.”
“Do not go far away.”
“Rest assured I will not.”
Silence again—this time not broken.
By-and-by he approached and listened; the low regular breathing convinced him that she slept at last. “She must be very, very weary,” he thought, “and I—” Scarce a word had been said that might not have been uttered before the world, and yet he felt a secret assurance that her heart was turning towards him.
VII
Dawn
When Geoffrey felt certain that she was sleeping, his next care was to examine the exterior of the Cave, thinking that there might probably be openings between the stones that would admit a draught. The hurdle at the doorway, full of minute interstices, and purposely placed loosely, allowed sufficient air to enter for breathing; what he wished to prevent was a current crossing the chamber, for though warm then, towards the morning the atmosphere is usually cooler.
