he knew who you were, Winnie?' I said.

'Yes, he knew who I was,' said she, looking meditatively across the
hills as though my query had raised in her own mind some question
which had newly presented itself. 'The gentleman told me that I had
been very ill and was now recovered, but not so entirely recovered at
present that I could with safety be burthened and perplexed with the
long story of my illness and what had brought me there. And when he
concluded by saying, "You are here for your good," I exclaimed, "Ah,
yes; no need for me to be told that," for his voice convinced me that
it was so. "But surely you can tell me something. Where is Henry? Is
he still ill?" I said. He told me that he believed you to be
perfectly well, and that you had lately been living in Wales, but had
now gone to Japan. "Henry lately in Wales! now gone to Japan!" I
exclaimed, "and he was not with me during the illness that you say I
have just recovered from?"'

'Winnie,' I said, 'it was no wonder you asked those questions, but you
will soon know all.'

Whilst Winnie had been talking my mind had been partly occupied with
words that fell from her about the voice of her mysterious rescuer.
They seemed to recall something.

'You were saying, Winnie, that the gentleman had a peculiarly musical
voice,' I said.

'So musical,' she replied, 'that it seemed to delight and charm, not
my mind only, but every nerve in my body.'

'Could you describe it?'

'Describe a voice,' she said, laughing. 'Who could describe a voice?'

'You, Winnie; only you. Do describe it.'

'I wonder,' she said, 'whether you remember our first walk along the
Raxton road, when I made invidious comparison between the voices of
birds and the voices of men and women?'

'Indeed I do,' I said. 'I remember how you suggested that among the
birds the rooks only could listen without offence to the cackle of a
crowd of people.'

'Well, Henry, I can only give you an idea of the gentleman's voice by
saying that the most fastidious blackbirds and thrushes that ever
lived would have liked it. Indeed they did seem to like it, as I
afterwards thought, when I took walks with him. It was music in every
variety of tone; and, besides, it seemed to me that this music was
enriched by a tone which I had learnt from your own dear voice as a
child, the tone which sorrow can give and nothing else. The listener
while he was speaking felt so drawn towards him as to love the man
who spoke. When hi