FOR a time Peregrine was as one distraught. It may not be far beside the mark to term him mad. He saw himself in the past mocked by a woman; he saw himself now mocked by a man. In both he saw vaguely the shadow of mockery by a Higher Power. Truly a hard state. Yet strangely, for all that, he lost not hold on his quest. Where heart’s desire had urged him in the past, fierce obstinacy now spurred him forward. The face of the woman he sought was ever before his mind. He believed her withheld and hidden from him by conspiring Fate. This roused him to battle. He would move Earth and Heaven and Hell to find her; die, if need be, in the attempt. This you may guess he was very like to do. Already his wanderings had told on him. It was now mid-winter, as we have seen, and that season is not one for e’en the hardiest to be afoot at all times, dependent on chance for shelter.

Of late he had aged considerably. This was not over strange, since age comes not with the mere passing of Time, but with the pressure of his finger in the passing. He had pressed hard on Peregrine. You see him very different from the love-bathed youth, who had sat by the sundial in the flower-scented garden; the joyous youth, who had wandered the fields with Pippo; the wounded youth, who had lain in the wood, his cheek pressed to Mother Earth; the egoist, who had held his Council of Arts in Castle Syrtes; who, dauntless, had fought his way through the forest. He was a man soul-sick, weary, desperate, pursuer of a forlorn hope, so men would term it.

Here it was that a certain duplex side of his character showed itself. One part of his nature would have ranged itself on the side of men, would have stood with them for the madness of his quest, its mere foolishness rather. This part of his nature he strangled very fiercely. Pride had a hand in the strangling. He would make his quest true, prove himself no fool. He saw himself in a sense creator of what he sought. He himself, by virtue of his belief in the woman, would materialize her, if she existed but in realms of fancy. Thus, I say, he would prove himself no fool. This was veritable madness. Yet I have told you Peregrine was for the moment not fully sane.

Leaving the cottage of illusion,—this is what he termed it to himself, and very bitterly,—he had made for the south, to the pass between the hills. Descending for a time, the path had at length led upwards between more pine woods, like to that he had lately traversed. Misery and the whiteness of the snow combined to daze him. He walked like a man in a trance. Subconsciously his mind worked, came to the state I have shown you. In this mood he formed certain aphorisms, some possibly already known by him; some new, created from old material.

“Cogito, ergo sum,—I think, therefore I exist,” being the first of them it led easily to his second.

“Thought is a creative power. Think deeply, and you will create greatly.” Ergo, by dwelling with every particle of his mind on the thought of the woman he sought, he would create her.

“Hope is a collective force. Terror and doubt disperse what you have thereby acquired.” Ergo, hope was the thought by which he would collect material for his creation. To allow terror or doubt to work alongside would be to undertake one of the seven labours of Hercules.

“Desire, being also thought and thereby creative, brings its own attainment.” Ergo, he desired the woman he sought and would attain to her. This was as certain as that a wheat seed can bring forth nought but wheat. It became, to his mind, a law of Nature. You see each of his aphorisms harping to the same end. Doubtless there were plenty more of them. Those I have given you will suffice.

Coming near the summit of the hill he made out a wayside cross, backgrounded by the pines. It stood weather-beaten and solitary. Here and there the stone was hidden by yellow fungus and grey lichen. Below it knelt a figure. For a breathing space Peregrine felt his heart bound. The next instant he had himself and his heart well under control. No second time would he give way to mere fancy. Here he was very wise. Coming further he saw a little peasant girl, ragged and ill clad. At the foot of the cross she had laid a bunch of holly. She turned on his approach, looking at him with wide childish eyes.

“I give you good-day, sir,” she said shyly, as he paused a moment.

“Good-day,” responded Peregrine, though in no mood to term it truly good.

“I—I have laid the holly there,” she said, as seeing him still stop she sought for conversation.

“A pretty thought,” said Peregrine indulgently. It was no more in his nature to snub a child than to strike an animal.

“I often bring flowers,” pursued the little maid. “First there are daffodils and primroses to bring. They are very fresh and sweet. Later come bluebells and herb Robert. They are not so pleasant-scented. Next come roses and honeysuckle. They are the most fragrant of all. In the autumn there are always leaves, which are as pretty as flowers, when they are red and gold. Now there is holly.”

“That is pretty too,” said Peregrine.

“Yes,” replied the child. “But it is sad. It is very thorny, and the berries are red like blood. When I see it I think of the crown of thorns, and Christ’s death.”

“A sorrowful fancy,” said Peregrine, and somewhat uneasily.

“’Tis not a fancy,” averred the child, discriminating nicely. “’Tis a thought. Fancies may not be over good.”

“Truly,” smiled Peregrine, finding amusement despite himself at the earnest tone of the small discriminator. “What manner of fancies, may I ask?”

Gravely she surveyed him. There was no mockery in his smile. An’ there had been she would have held her peace. Instead she cogitated, seeking to make her meaning clear.

“I know,” she said wisely after a moment, “that there are evil spirits in the world. They roam abroad, especially in darkness. I used to fancy we were all safer from their power from Christmas till Ascension Day. I fancied Christ truly on the earth during that time. After Ascension Day He seemed further away, and sometimes I was frighted. I told this to Father Bernard. He said that it was merely fancy. He said Our Lord was ever present now upon the earth in the Blessed Sacrament, in greater glory now than when He lived on earth before. I have forgotten what more he said; but I am no longer frighted when Ascension Day is past. You see, what I held before was fancy, and—and—I cannot tell you rightly, but Father Bernard would show you that fancies are not the same as thoughts.”

“Humph!” said Peregrine, having no mind to test the perspicacity of Father Bernard or any other priest on the matter. He hitched his cloak closer around him, ready to start again on his way. The movement disclosed his tabor hanging by a frayed ribbon from his neck. The child saw it; curiosity was quick astir.

“What is that?” she demanded, finger pointing.

“My tabor,” returned Peregrine.

“Tabor?” she queried. The word as well as the instrument was unknown to her. “What is a tabor?”

“A musical instrument,” said Peregrine, smiling at the little ignoramus.

“Music!” Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed. “Ah, play it!” This was on a note of deep entreaty.

Peregrine shrugged his shoulders. Here was an interlude in his former mood of blackness. It was not wholly distasteful. You have seen that he favoured children. He found quaintness in this one.

“What shall I play for you?” he demanded, unslinging the instrument.

“Play while I sing,” she said firmly. “That will sound well.”

Peregrine chuckled. “Truly that depends on the singing,” quoth he. “On, then, with the song.”

Birdlike her voice rose in the pure air. Peregrine catching the melody came in with the tabor. Here is what she sang.

“There,” she cried triumphant, as she ended, most innocently pleased with the performance, “I said it would sound well.”

“Liquid silver notes from a throat of gold,” said Peregrine, verily astonished. “An’ I had not other matters on hand, you and I might well roam the world together, and men would truly hearken to us, or they are greater dullards than even I judge them.”

She looked at him with longing eyes. His words held open a vista of bliss before her. But she shook her head sadly.

“It cannot be. I have work to do,” she said sorrowful.

“For that matter so indeed have I,” quoth Peregrine. “What manner of work is thine?”

“I mind my father’s goats,” she responded. “What work is yours?”

“I seek some one,” said Peregrine grimly.

“Some one you have lost?”

“Some one I have never found,” was the answer.

“Oh,” responded the child perplexed. Then shyly, “I must be about my work. I thank you, sir. God speed you with your seeking.” Waiting for no response she nodded to him, turned off into the pinewood.

Peregrine went slowly on his way.

The interlude had come happily. There is a healthful sanity in a child’s company, even if it endure but a brief space. Peregrine felt his mind somewhat cleansed of the murkiness which had enshrouded it. He began to picture the woman he sought as present with him. This eased his mind for a while, even though it tantalized. It lifted him to a more exalted mood. He identified her with the Spirit of Life around him, saw her passing over the snow swift-footed, fancied her coming from among the pines towards him, heard her voice in the light breeze which stirred them. He held her thus in his thought throughout the day. He saw her image in the glowing sunset, fancied the purpling light across the hills the spreading of her veil. So far so good. With the night, fatigue descended on him. There comes a point in this state when fancy cannot readily be embraced, nor even held though formerly present. Reality is required upon which to rest the mind. This Peregrine had not. Fancy slipping from him left him desolate. He was also very hungry. Fate had thrown no dwelling in his path whereat he could beg bread. Therefore he had not broken his fast since early morning. The needs of nature joining with desolation of mind to bear him down, he found himself heavily weighted.

Darkness lay around him. The sky, which at close of sunset had clouded, brought very meagre light to guide him. Only the faint glimmer of the white road before him gave him his route. He stumbled on, sinking at times knee deep in the snow, where it lay drifted beneath the wall.

The wind began to rise, and with it feathery flakes came silent and insidious. They touched his cheek like soft cold kisses. You would never have dreamed danger in their tenderness. They came faster, thicker. The wind swirled them in a dancing maze. A few steps further, and a blizzard was upon him. The wind rushing from the north smote him that he could barely stand. The snow leaped and flashed around him, blinding, suffocating. He staggered on doggedly.

“An’ I stop now I never find her.” That was his thought, barely articulate even to his own mind.

In his stress forgotten habit came to him. A prayer rose to his lips. He put it swift aside. Long ago he had prayed, believed in prayer, in God, in a woman he had created,—a woman who had prayed. She had mocked at him; cast him from her. Therefore he had put her and her beliefs from him, and with them his own, being like to hers. In this you see sheer stupidity, and rightly. The Creator is not responsible for hypocrisy in His creatures. That is where the Devil comes in with his handling of matters. This Peregrine had not seen formerly, nor was like to do so now, blinded and stupefied as he was by his conflict with the snow.

Putting prayer aside, then, he trusted to his own efforts. It is certain that he lacked not courage of a kind. His arm up shielding his face, he struggled on. His breath came in sobbing gasps. A dark mass looming before him brought him to a halt. From out the mass gleamed a faint light piercing the snow-driven atmosphere. He took a step towards it, and sank in a drift to his thigh. For a moment he struggled, but to sink the deeper. Well-nigh spent, drowsiness was falling on him. It seemed that further effort availed him nought. As well rest now as not; rest and sleep.

In the blinding snow around him he thought he saw a woman standing. She came nearer, bending to him. Now indeed he cried, “At last!” and stretched out his arms. Even as he cried, he saw her eyes. They were avenging, terrible.... The snow was like a white flame round her....

Shuddering with more than cold, he looked full at her. Then unconsciousness fell upon him.