n on Belgium, with its grey
fumes hanging like a cloud in the clear transparent autumn air, lay the
large town of Verviers with its church-towers and factory chimneys
towering above it.

Kate heaved a sigh and shuddered involuntarily: oh, was the workaday
world so near? Was grey life already approaching nearer and nearer to
her wonderful fairy world?

Her husband gave a slight cough; he found it very cold up there.
They went down from the tower, but when he wanted to take her back to
the inn she resisted: "No, not yet, not yet. That's only the midday
bell."

The bell was ringing in Fischbach Chapel, that ancient little church
with its slated roof, in whose tower the great red lantern was
formerly hoisted to point out the safe harbour to the wanderer swimming
in the wild sea of mists, and the bell rung unceasingly to save the man
who had lost his way through his ear should his eye fail him. The bell
rang out clear and penetrating in the solitude, the only sound in the
vast stillness.

"How touching that sound is." Kate stood with folded hands and
looked into the wide expanse, her eyes swimming in tears. What a charm
there was in this Venn. It encircled the soul as the tough underwood of
the heather and the creeping tendrils of the club moss entangled the
foot. When she thought of how soon she would have to leave it, to go
away from that immense stillness that seemed to be concealing a secret,
to be cherishing something marvellous in its deep lap, her heart
contracted in sudden fear. What would happen to her, what would become
of her? Her seeking soul stood like a child on the threshold of
fairyland asking for something--was there to be no gift for her?

"What was that?" All at once she seized hold of her husband's arm
with a low cry of terror. "Didn't you hear it as well?"

She had grown quite pale; she stood there with dilated eyes, raising
herself on her toes with an involuntary movement and craning her neck
forward.

"There it is again. Do you hear it?" Something like a child's soft
whimpering had penetrated to her ear.

No, he had not heard anything. "I suppose there are some people in
the neighbourhood. How you do frighten a body, Kate." He shook his head
a little angrily. "You know very well that all the women and children
have left their villages in the Venn to gather cranberries. That's all
the harvest they have, you see. Look, the berries are quite ripe."
Stooping down he took up a plant.

The small