lution took hold of me,
and I said: "Dear neighbour, I may as well tell you at once that I find
it easier to imagine all that ugly past than you do, because I myself
have been part of it. I see both that you have divined something of this
in me; and also I think you will believe me when I tell you of it, so
that I am going to hide nothing from you at all."

She was silent a little, and then she said: "My friend, you have guessed
right about me; and to tell you the truth I have followed you up from
Runnymede in order that I might ask you many questions, and because I saw
that you were not one of us; and that interested and pleased me, and I
wanted to make you as happy as you could be. To say the truth, there was
a risk in it," said she, blushing--"I mean as to Dick and Clara; for I
must tell you, since we are going to be such close friends, that even
amongst us, where there are so many beautiful women, I have often
troubled men's minds disastrously. That is one reason why I was living
alone with my father in the cottage at Runnymede. But it did not answer
on that score; for of course people came there, as the place is not a
desert, and they seemed to find me all the more interesting for living
alone like that, and fell to making stories of me to themselves--like I
know you did, my friend. Well, let that pass. This evening, or
to-morrow morning, I shall make a proposal to you to do something which
would please me very much, and I think would not hurt you."

I broke in eagerly, saying that I would do anything in the world for her;
for indeed, in spite of my years and the too obvious signs of them
(though that feeling of renewed youth was not a mere passing sensation, I
think)--in spite of my years, I say, I felt altogether too happy in the
company of this delightful girl, and was prepared to take her confidences
for more than they meant perhaps.

She laughed now, but looked very kindly on me. "Well," she said,
"meantime for the present we will let it be; for I must look at this new
country that we are passing through. See how the river has changed
character again: it is broad now, and the reaches are long and very slow-
running. And look, there is a ferry!"

I told her the name of it, as I slowed off to put the ferry-chain over
our heads; and on we went passing by a bank clad with oak trees on our
left hand, till the stream narrowed again and deepened, and we rowed on
between walls of tall reeds, whose populati