n
the startling spectacle of the previous evening, although her
expression was careworn, and she certainly looked a little paler than
she used to look when she and I and Rhona Boswell were such great
friends; her splendid beauty and bearing were as striking as ever, I
thought. I was expecting every minute that she would say something
about what occurred under the elm tree in the home close. But she did
not allude to it, and therefore I did not. We spent the entire
afternoon in reminiscences of Carnarvonshire. When she told me that
she knew you and that you had been there together, and when she told
me the cause of your being there, and told me of your search for me,
and all the distress that came to you on my account, my longing to
see you was like a fever.

'But vivid as were the pictures that Sinfi gave me of your search for
me, I could not piece them together in a plain tale. I tried to do
so; it was impossible. What had happened to me after I had become
unconscious on the sands in that unaccountable way--why I was found
in Wales--how I could possibly have got there without knowing about
it--what had led to my being discovered by Mr. D'Arcy--discovered in
London, above all places, and in a painter's studio--these questions
were with me night and day, and Sinfi was entirely unable to tell me
anything about the matter, unless, as I sometimes half-thought, she
was concealing something from me.'

'How could you have suspicions of poor Sinfi?' I said, for I was
becoming alarmed at the way in which these inquiries were absorbing
Winnie's mind.

'It is, I know, Henry, a peculiarity of my nature to be extremely
confiding until I have once been deceived, and then to be just as
suspicious. Kind as Mr. D'Arcy has been to me, I began to feel
restless in his haven of refuge. I think that he perceived it, for I
often found his eyes fixed upon me with a somewhat inquiring and
anxious expression in them. I felt that I must leave him and go out
into the world and take my place in the battle of life.'

'But, Winnie,' I said, 'you don't say that you intended to come to
me. Battle of life, indeed! Where should Winnie stand in that battle
except by the side of Henry? You knew now where to find me. Sinfi,
of course, told you that I was in Wales. And you did not even write
to me! What can it mean?'

'Why, Henry, don't you know what it means? Don't you know that the
newspapers were full of long paragraphs about the heir of the Aylw