I should not
wonder to hear you were born after I left the stage. And you are
pretty, but not old enough to be Orfeo yet. I must wait--I must
wait, though I wait till I doubt if I am not changed to Proserpine
with her cracked voice. Boy, if I kissed you--"
She advanced a step, but the negress caught her by the wrist
violently, at the same moment waving me off. I felt faint and giddy,
as though some exhalation from the graveyard--not wholly repellent,
but sickly, overpowering, like the scent of a hothouse lily--had been
suddenly wafted under my nostrils. I fell back a pace as the negress
motioned me away. Her hand pointed across the stream, and across the
meadow, to the gap in the ridge.
"Fast as you can run," she panted; "and never come this way again."
The strong scent yet hung around me and seemed to bind me like a
spell, pressing on my arms and logs. I plunged knee-deep into the
stream. The cool touch of the water brought me to my senses.
I splashed across, waded up the bank, and set off running towards the
gap.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE MAN IN BLACK.
Before ever I gained the gap I was panting, and as I panted the blood
ran into my mouth from a deep scratch across the eyebrows.
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