"No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe!" I turned to her, and
looking in her eyes, said:--
"But you? It is for you that I fear!" whereat she laughed--a laugh, low
and unreal, and said:--
"Fear for _me_! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them
than I am," and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of
wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead.
Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the
wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without
the Holy circle. Then they began to materialise till--if God have not
take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes--there were before me
in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when
they would have kissed his throa
