p to her feet; she found herself standing
close to him almost before she realised what he had done. Some people
were coming briskly along the road and Captain Anthony muttered: "You
don't want to be stared at. What about that stile over there? Can we
go back across the fields?"

She snatched her hands out of his grasp (it seems he had omitted to let
them go), marched away from him and got over the stile. It was a big
field sprinkled profusely with white sheep. A trodden path crossed it
diagonally. After she had gone more than half-way she turned her head
for the first time. Keeping five feet or so behind, Captain Anthony was
following her with an air of extreme interest. Interest or eagerness.
At any rate she caught an expression on his face which frightened her.
But not enough to make her run. And indeed it would have had to be
something incredibly awful to scare into a run a girl who had come to
the end of her courage to live.

As if encouraged by this glance over the shoulder Captain Anthony came
up boldly, and now that he was by her side, she felt his nearness
intimately, like a touch. She tried to disregard this sensation. But
she was not angry with him now. It wasn't worth while. She was
thankful that he had the sense not to ask questions as to this crying.
Of course he didn't ask because he didn't care. No one in the world
cared for her, neither those who pretended nor yet those who did not
pretend. She preferred the latter.

Captain Anthony opened for her a gate into another field; when they got
through he kept walking abreast, elbow to elbow almost. His voice
growled pleasantly in her very ear. Staying in this dull place was
enough to give anyone the blues. His sister scribbled all day. It was
positively unkind. He alluded to his nieces as rude, selfish monkeys,
without either feelings or manners. And he went on to talk about his
ship being laid up for a month and dismantled for repairs. The worst
was that on arriving in London he found he couldn't get the rooms he was
used to, where they made him as comfortable as such a confirmed sea-dog
as himself could be anywhere on shore.

In the effort to subdue by dint of talking and to keep in check the
mysterious, the profound attraction he felt already for that delicate
being of flesh and blood, with pale cheeks, with, darkened eyelids and
eyes scalded with hot tears, he went on speaking of himself as a
confirmed enemy of life on shore--a pe