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"To−morrow I may!" I rejoined.
She rose and went to the door, saying as she went,
"It has nothing to do with to−morrow−−but you may take it if you will."
She opened the door, and stood holding it. I rose, taking up the bread−−but lingered, much desiring to see her
face.
"Must I go, then?" I asked.
"No one sleeps in my house two nights together!" she answered.
"I thank you, then, for your hospitality, and bid you farewell!" I said, and turned to go.
"The time will come when you must house with me many days and many nights," she murmured sadly
through her muffling.
"Willingly," I replied.
"Nay, NOT willingly!" she answered.
I said to myself that she was right−−I would not willingly be her guest a second time! but immediately my
heart rebuked me, and I had scarce crossed the threshold when I turned again.
She stood in the middle of the room; her white garments lay like foamy waves at her feet, and among them
the swathings of her face: it was lovely as a night of stars. Her great gray eyes looked up to heaven; tears
were flowing down her pale cheeks. She reminded me not a little of the sexton's wife, although the one
looked as if she had not wept for thousands of years, and the other as if she wept constantly behind the
wrappings of her beautiful head. Yet something in the very eyes that wept seemed to say, "Weeping may
endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."
I had bowed my head for a moment, about to kneel and beg her forgiveness, when, looking up in the act, I
found myself outside a doorless house. I went round and round it, but could find no entrance.
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I had stopped under one of the windows, on the point of calling aloud my repentant confession, when a
sudden wailing, howling scream invaded my ears, and my heart stood still. Something sprang from the
window above my head, and lighted beyond me. I turned, and saw a large gray cat, its hair on end, shooting
toward the river−bed. I fell with my face in the sand, and seemed to hear within the house the gentle sobbing
of one who suffered but did not repent.
CHAPTER XVI. A GRUESOME DANCE
I rose to resume my journey, and walked many a desert mile. How I longed for a mountain, or even a tall
rock, from whose summit I might see across the dismal plain or the dried−up channels to some bordering
hope! Yet what could such foresight have availed me? That which is within a man, not that which lies beyond
his vision, is the main factor in what is about to befall him: the operation upon him is the event. Foreseeing is
not understanding, else surely the prophecy latent in man would come oftener to the surface!
The sun was half−way to the horizon when I saw before me a rugged rocky ascent; but ere I reached it my
desire to climb was over, and I longed to lie down. By that time the sun was almost set, and the air had begun
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