ck satin between each two, and
there was an antimacassar of severe but rich beauty. Denah explained
all this as she set Mevrouw to work on the pattern; it was very
intricate, quite exciting, because it was so difficult; the more
excited the old lady became the more mistakes she made, but it did not
matter; Denah was patience itself, and did not seem to mind how much
time she gave. She came every day after dinner (that is to say, about
six o'clock), and when she came it was frequently found necessary that
Julia should go to inquire after the invalid cousin. Denah thought
herself the deepest and most diplomatic young woman in Holland; she
even found it in her heart to pity Julia, the poor companion, who she
used as a pawn in her romance. The which, since it was transparently
obvious to the pawn, gave her vast, though private, delight.

So Julia went almost daily down the long flat road to the village, and
very often Rawson-Clew had to go that way too; and when he did, his
time of going being of necessity much the same time as hers, he was
almost bound to walk with her. There was but one way to the place;
they must either walk together in the middle of the road, or else
separately, one side of it; and seeing that they were of the same
nationality, in a foreign land, and had some previous acquaintance, it
would have been nothing short of absurd to have done the latter. So as
often as they met they walked together and talked of many things, and
in the course of time Rawson-Clew came to find Julia's company a good
deal more entertaining than his own; although she had read nothing she
ought to have read, seen nothing she ought to have seen, and
occasionally both thought and said things she certainly ought not, and
was not even conventionally unconventional.

They usually parted at the footpath, which shortened her way a little,
Rawson-Clew giving her the basket there, and going down the road
alone; in consequence of this it was some time before she knew for
certain where it was he went, although she had early guessed. But one
damp evening she departed from her usual custom. It had been raining
heavily all day, and although it had cleared now, a thick mist lay
over the wet fields.

"I shall have to go round by the road," she said, as she looked at the
track.

Rawson-Clew agreed with her. "I am rather surprised that you came out
at all this evening," he remarked. "I should have thought your careful
friends would have been a