lowly--looking at
him, as she came on, with the sunken eyes, the sorrow-stricken face, the
stony tranquillity of Hester Dethridge.

Geoffrey was staggered. He had not bargained for exchanging the dullest
producible vulgarities of human speech (called in the language of slang,
"Chaff") with such a woman as this.

"What's that slate for?" he asked, not knowing what else to say, to
begin with.

The woman lifted her hand to her lips--touched them--and shook her head.

"Dumb?"

The woman bowed her head.

"Who are you?"

The woman wrote on her slate, and handed it to him over the pear-trees.
He read:--"I am the cook."

"Well, cook, were you born dumb?"

The woman shook her head.

"What struck you dumb?"

The woman wrote on her slate:--"A blow."

"Who gave you the blow?"

She shook her head.

"Won't you tell me?"

She shook her head again.

Her eyes had rested on his face while he was questioning her; staring
at him, cold, dull, and changeless as the eyes of a corpse. Firm as his
nerves were--dense as he was, on all ordinary occasions, to any thing in
the shape of an imaginative impression--the eyes of the dumb cook slowly
penetrated him with a stealthy inner chill. Something crept at the
marrow of his back, and shuddered under the roots of his hair. He felt
a sudden impulse to get away from her. It was simple enough; he had only
to say good-morning, and go on. He did say good-morning--but he never
moved. He put his hand into his pocket, and offered her some money, as a
way of making _her_ go. She stretched out her hand across the pear-trees
to take it--and stopped abruptly, with her arm suspended in the air. A
sinister change passed over the deathlike tranquillity of her face. Her
closed lips slowly dropped apart. Her dull eyes slowly dilated; looked
away, sideways, from _his_ eyes; stopped again; and stared, rigid and
glittering, over his shoulder--stared as if they saw a sight of horror
behind him. "What the devil are you looking at?" he asked--and turned
round quickly, with a start. There was neither person nor thing to be
seen behind him. He turned back again to the woman. The woman had left
him, under the influence of some sudden panic. She was hurrying away
from him--running, old as she was--flying the sight of him, as if the
sight of him was the pestilence.

"Mad!" he thought--and turned his back on the sight of her.

He found himself (hardly knowing how he had got there) under the
walnut-tree