dness called up
those lines in her face.

* * * * *

Well, ten days passed, sometimes we met at breakfast, sometimes at
supper, sometimes we fished together or sat in the straggling orchard
and talked; she neither avoided me nor sought me. She is the most
charming mixture of child and woman I ever met. She is a dual creature.
Now I never met that in a man. When she is here without getting a letter
in the morning or going to town, she seems like a girl. She runs about
in her grey gown and little cap and laughs, and seems to throw off all
thought like an irresponsible child. She is eager to fish, or pick
gooseberries and eat them daintily, or sit under the trees and talk. But
when she goes to town--I notice she always goes when she gets a lawyer's
letter, there is no mistaking the envelope--she comes home tired and
haggard-looking, an old woman of thirty-five. I wonder why. It takes
her, even with her elasticity of temperament, nearly a day to get young
again. I hate her to go to town; it is extraordinary how I miss her; I
can't recall, when she is absent, her saying anything very wonderful,
but she converses all the time. She has a gracious way of filling the
place with herself, there is an entertaining quality in her very
presence. We had one rainy afternoon; she tied me some flies (I shan't
use any of them); I watched the lights in her hair as she moved, it is
quite golden in some places, and she has a tiny mole near her left ear
and another on her left wrist. On the eleventh day she got a letter but
she didn't go to town, she stayed up in her room all day; twenty times I
felt inclined to send her a line, but I had no excuse. I heard the
landlady say as I passed the kitchen window: 'Poor dear! I'm sorry to
lose her!' Lose her? I should think not. It has come to this with me
that I don't care to face any future without her; and yet I know nothing
about her, not even if she is a free woman. I shall find that out the
next time I see her. In the evening I catch a glimpse of her gown in the
orchard, and I follow her. We sit down near the river. Her left hand is
lying gloveless next to me in the grass.

'Do you think from what you have seen of me, that I would ask a question
out of any mere impertinent curiosity?'

She starts. 'No, I do not!'

I take up her hand and touch the ring. 'Tell me, does this bind you to
any one?'

I am conscious of a buzzing in my ears and a dancing blurr of wa