My first impulse on nearing Carnarvon was to go—­I could not have said why—­to Llanbeblig churchyard.

Among a group of graves of the Davieses we easily found that of Winifred’s aunt, beneath a newly-planted arbutus tree.  After looking at the modest mound for some time, and wondering where Winifred had stood when the coffin was lowered—­as I had wondered where she had stood at St. Winifred’s Well—­I roamed about the churchyard with Sinfi in silence for a time.

At last she said, ‘I mind comin’ here wonst with Winnie, and I mind her sayin’:  “There’s no place I should so much like to be buried in as Llanbeblig churchyard.  The graves of them as die unmarried do look so beautiful."’

‘How did she know the graves of those who die unmarried?’

Sinfi looked over the churchyard and waved her hand.

‘Wherever you see them beautiful primroses, and them shinin’ snowdrops, and them sweet-smellin’ vi’lets, that’s allus the grave of a child or else of a young Gorgie as died a maid; and wherever you see them laurel trees, and box trees, and ’butus trees, that’s the grave of a pusson as ain’t nuther child nor maid, an’ the Welsh folk think nobody else on’y child’n an’ maids ain’t quite good enough to be turned into the blessed flowers o’ spring.’

‘Next to the sea,’ I said, ‘she loved the flowers of spring.’

‘And I should like to be buried here too, brother,’ said Sinfi, as we left the churchyard.

’But a fine strong girl like you, Sinfi, is not very likely to die unmarried while there are Romany bachelors about.’

‘There ain’t a-many Romany chals,’ she said, ’as du’st marry Sinfi Lovell, even supposing as Sinfi Lovell ‘ud marry them, an’ a Gorgio she’ll never marry—­an’ never can marry.  And to lay here aneath the flowers o ‘spring, wi’ the Welsh sun a-shinin’ on ’em as it’s a-shinin’ now, that must be a sweet kind of bed, brother, and for anythink as I knows on, a Romany chi ‘ud make as sweet a bed o’ vi’lets as the beautifullest Gorgie-wench as wur ever bred in Carnarvon, an’ as shinin’ a bunch o’ snowdrops as ever the Welsh spring knows how to grow.’

At any other time this extraordinary girl’s talk would have interested me greatly; now, nothing had any interest for me that did not bear directly upon the fate of Winifred.

Little dreaming how this quiet churchyard had lately been one of the battle-grounds of that all-conquering power (Destiny, or Circumstance?) which had governed Winnie’s life and mine, I went with Sinfi into Carnarvon, and made inquiry everywhere, but without the slightest result.  This occupied several days, during which time Sinfi stayed with some acquaintances encamped near Carnarvon, while I lodged at a little hotel.