Peggy Morrison's lifted finger caught
Maria's glance. It was an imperative gesture, meaning haste and secrecy,
and separation from her brother Rice. Maria laughed and shook her head
wistfully. The girlish pastimes of Midsummer Night were all done for
her. She thought of nights in her own wild county of Merionethshire,
when she had run, palpitating like a hare, to try some spell or charm
which might reveal the future to her; and now it was revealed.
An apparition from the other hemisphere came upon her that instant. She
saw a man standing by the friar's booth looking at her. What his eyes
said she could not, through her shimmering and deadly faintness,
perceive. How could he be here in Kaskaskia? The shock of seeing him
annihilated physical weakness in her. She stood on limbs of stone. Her
hand on her brother's arm did not tremble; but a pinched blueness spread
about her nostrils and eye sockets, and dinted sudden hollows in her
temples.
Dr. Dunlap took a step toward her. At that, she looked around for some
place to hide in, the animal instinct of flight arising first, and
darted from her brother into the graveyard.
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