A WIND FLOWER
room. As she passed him he was conscious of a distinct physical impression—a kind of electric presence. She seemed to gather and hold about her all the faint light of the cold room, and the sweep of her skirt against his foot seemed to draw him toward her. Suddenly she stopped her irregular march.
"Hear it sing!" she whispered.
The now distinct voice of the wind grew to a long, minor wail, that rose and fell with rhythmic regularity. As she paused with uplifted finger near him, Willard felt with amazement a compelling force, a personality more intense, for the time, than his own. Then, as the blast, with a shriek that echoed for a moment with startling distinctness from every side, dashed the elm branches against the house itself, she turned abruptly and left the room. "Stay here!" she said shortly, and, resisting the impulse to follow her, he obeyed. In a few moments she returned with a heavy shawl wrapped over her head and shoulders.
"Hold the window open for me," she said, "I'm going out." He attempted remonstrance, but she
42
