Wheel of Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

follow the thread of some story, for she marked one of the same figures in action from one panel to another.
    Only she was not given any time to study this, for what Lady Lyle promptly laid out on another table were very modern photographs. These looked starkly bare when one had seen the walls.At a glance Gwennan recognized the places which had been so filmed. Three were of rocks which she had noted on her own one short trip of exploration.
    Lady Lyle nodded, studying the girl’s face closely.
    “Yes,” her voice was eager, alive. “These are what we should seek. See, these lie directly on a path which is laid so—” With an impatient whisk of the hand she brushed the pictures to one side, producing a map on which was drawn a scarlet line, so deeply red as to seem alive. Still the rest of the map was brown with age, other lines on it much faded. Gwennan had to peer very closely to make out a few landmarks she recognized. This was certainly a section of the valley—but one which showed nothing of dwellings and farms with which she was familiar.
    “Drawn so,” her hostess was continuing. “It intersects with another from the north—”
    Yes, there was a second line, again much faded, its color a palish pink.
    “And so you see where is their intersection? It lies at the stones—the meadow stones!”
    “I never looked to the north.” Gwennan dared to put out a finger tip to trace that other, much older, faded line. “These marks—” surely those dots were not age spots but had been set there for a purpose—"they are also stones?”
    “At this hill notch there is a triangular rock. It is mounted to point so—” Now it was Lady Lyle’s finger which stabbed down at the old map. “It is supported upon three small stones and the balance is correct. Let your experts who talk ofglacier deposits make what they can of that!”
    “Leys—” Gwennan’s interest was caught now. “And where they intersect—”
    “Places of added force! Just so. There are such sites—much greater perhaps. Stonehenge is one, Canterbury with all its legends as a sacred place. Even more—Glastonbury. All these mark interceptions of the leys. This one is but a simple conjunction compared to those. The leys are lines of magnetic force—that is already halfway proven—or relearned. Eventually those who have argued this truth for years will be vindicated. Once, we believe, men and women knew how to summon such forces, to harness them. They controlled powers of which men today cannot begin to conceive.” Her words came faster and faster, her pale face showed a small flush as if blood gathered there in proof of her earnest belief in what she said. “Lost—” her hand no longer moved across the map, but lay limply, palm down upon its edge. She drew back a little in her chair, her eyes closed, and she breathed quickly, short panting breaths.
    Gwennan was on her feet, alarmed, reaching for those limp hands, grasping their chill flesh quickly. It was plain that Lady Lyle was ill. She looked beyond the half-fainting woman to where Tor Lyle had lounged, taking no part in their inspection of the map. Nor did he move now—even when it was so apparent that his kinswoman needed help.
    “She is ill! Dr. Hughes should be called!”
    The young man shook his head. That smile was back, shadowy about his lips, and his eyes remainedhalf veiled. She longed to shout at him.
    When he got to his feet it was not to come to the woman whose labored breathing was now harsh in the room. Rather he went to pull a cord which hung near the huge fireplace. Lady Lyle stirred a little, opened her eyes to look straight into Gwennan’s. There was no color in her face, while in the girl’s hold her two hands were colder, seemingly more limp. The older woman drew a deeper breath—then another. She smiled, a small ghost of her earlier welcoming smile.
    “Did I alarm you, child? This is nothing. When one has lived as long as I, sometimes even a small indulgence in