owerful thorns. Lucia stood still, being indeed unable to move, and
watched his long, slender fingers adroitly disentangling her.

"I'm afraid you're hurting yourself," said she.

"Not at all," said Mr. Rickman gallantly, though the thorns tortured
his hands, drawing drops of blood. His bliss annihilated pain.

"Take care," said she, "you are letting yourself get terribly torn."

He took no notice; but breathed harder than ever. "There, I've got it
all off now, I think."

"Thank you very much." She drew her skirt gently from his detaining
grasp.

"No--wait--please. There's a great hulking brute of a thorn stuck in
the hem."

She waited.

"Confound my clumsiness! I've done it now!"

"Done what?" She looked down; on the dainty hem there appeared three
distinct crimson stains. Mr. Rickman's face was crimson, too, with a
flush of agony. Whatever he did for her his clumsiness made wrong.

"I'm awfully sorry, but I've ruined your--your pretty dress, Miss
Harden."

For it was a pretty, a very pretty, a charming dress. And he was
making matters worse by rubbing it with his pocket-handkerchief.

"Please--please don't bother," said she, "it doesn't matter." (How
different from the behaviour of Miss Walker when Spinks spilt the
melted butter on her shoulder!) "You've hurt your own hands more than
my dress."

The episode seemed significant of the perils that awaited him in his
intercourse with Miss Harden.

She went on. The narrow hill-track ended in the broad bridle-path that
goes straight up Harcombe (not Harmouth) valley. He wondered, with
quite painful perplexity, whether he ought still to follow at a
discreet distance, or whether he might now walk beside her. She
settled the question by turning round and waiting for him to come up
with her. So they went up the valley together, and together climbed
the steep road that leads out of it and back in the direction they had
just left. The mist was thinner here at the top of the hill, and
Rickman recognized the road he had crossed when he had turned
eastwards that morning. He could now have found his way back perfectly
well; but he did not say so. A few minutes' walk brought them to the
place where he had sat down in his misery and looked over Harmouth
valley.

Here they stopped, each struck by the strange landscape now suddenly
revealed to them. They stood in clear air above the fog. It had come
rolling in from the south, submerging the cliffs, and the town, and