as a
gipsyish look about her, as though she had not always been of the town.

The sight of a woman's unrestrained distress in the very heart of
untouched nature is so rare that one must be peculiar to remain unmoved.
And there I stood, not knowing what on earth to do. She went on rocking
herself to and fro, her stays creaking, and a faint moaning sound coming
from her lips; and suddenly she drooped over her lap, her hands fallen
to her sides, as though she had gone into a kind of coma. How go on and
leave her thus; yet how intrude on what did not seem to me mere physical
suffering?

In that quandary I stood and watched. This corner was quite sheltered
from the wind, the sun almost hot, and the breath of the swaling reached
one in the momentary calms. For three full minutes she had not moved a
finger; till, beginning to think she had really fainted, I went up to
her. From her drooped body came a scent of heat, and of stale violet
powder, and I could see, though the east wind had outraddled them,
traces of rouge on her cheeks and lips; their surface had a sort of
swollen defiance, but underneath, as it were, a wasted look. Her
breathing sounded faint and broken.

Mustering courage, I touched her on the arm. She raised her head and
looked up. Her eyes were the best things she had left; they must have
once been very beautiful. Bloodshot now from the wind, their wild,
stupefied look passed after a moment into the peculiar, half-bold,
half-furtive stare of women of a certain sort. She did not speak, and in
my embarrassment I drew out the flask of port I always take with me on
my rambles, and stammered:

"I beg your pardon--are you feeling faint? Would you care--?" And,
unscrewing the top, I held out the flask. She stared at it a moment
blankly, then taking it, said:

"That's kind of you. I feel to want it, tu." And, putting it to her
lips, she drank, tilting back her head. Perhaps it was the tell-tale
softness of her u's, perhaps the naturally strong lines of her figure
thus bent back, but somehow the plumage of the town bird seemed to drop
off her suddenly.

She handed back the flask, as empty as it had ever been, and said, with
a hard smile:

"I dare say you thought me funny sittin' 'ere like that."

"I thought you were ill."

She laughed without the faintest mirth, and muttered:

"I did go on, didn't I?" Then, almost fiercely, added: "I got some
reason, too. Seein' the old place again after all these years." H