Then the
seekers heard a loud cry, and saw one of the nuns running towards the
convent door, with her hands pressed to her face as if to shut out some
dreadful sight; and when they called to her she pointed back towards the
stream and ran on to the house. Then all the sisters who were out in the
grounds hurried down to the stream to the spot where Elfrida was
accustomed to sit, and were horrified to see her lying drowned in the
water.
It was a hot, dry summer and the stream was low, and in stooping to dip
her hand in the water she had lost her balance and fallen in, and
although the water was but three feet deep she had in her feebleness
been unable to save herself. She was lying on her back on the clearly
seen bed of many-coloured pebbles, her head pointing downstream, and the
swift fretting current had carried away her hood and pulled out her long
abundant silver-white hair, and the current played with her hair, now
pulling it straight out, then spreading it wide over the surface, mixing
its silvery threads with the hair-like green blades of the floating
water-grass. And the dead face was like marble; but the wide-open eyes
that had never wholly lost their brilliance and the beautiful lungwort
blue colour were like living eyes--living and gazing through the
crystal-clear running water at the group of nuns staring down with
horror-struck faces at her.
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