They had been that walk only once
before, and Lanfear failed of his reckoning, except the downward course
which must bring them out on the high-road at last. But Miss Gerald's
instinct saved them where his reason failed. She did not remember, but
she knew the way, and she led him on as if she were inventing it, or as
if it had been indelibly traced upon her mind and she had only to follow
the mystical lines within to be sure of her course. She confessed to
being very tired, and each step must have increased her fatigue, but
each step seemed to clear her perception of the next to be taken.
Suddenly, when Lanfear was blaming himself for bringing all this upon
her, and then for trusting to her guidance, he recognized a certain
peasant's house, and in a few moments they had descended the
olive-orchard terraces to a broken cistern in the clear twilight beyond
the dusk. She suddenly halted him. "There, there! It happened
then--now--this instant!"
"What?"
"That feeling of being here before! There is the curb of the old
cistern; and the place where the terrace wall is broken; and the path up
to the vineyard--Don't you feel it, too?" she demanded, with a
joyousness which had no pleasure for him.
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