walk with a lady for years and
years--almost since he was a boy. We had then come to where I ought to
have turned off and struck across a field. I thought of making a run of
it. But he would have caught me up. I knew he would; and, of course, he
would not have allowed me. I couldn't give him the slip."

"Why didn't you ask him to leave you?" I inquired curiously.

"He would not have taken any notice," she went on steadily. "And what
could I have done then? I could not have started quarrelling with
him--could I? I hadn't enough energy to get angry. I felt very tired
suddenly. I just stumbled on straight along the road. Captain Anthony
told me that the family--some relations of his mother--he used to know in
Liverpool was broken up now, and he had never made any friends since. All
gone their different ways. All the girls married. Nice girls they were
and very friendly to him when he was but little more than a boy. He
repeated: 'Very nice, cheery, clever girls.' I sat down on a bank
against a hedge and began to cry."

"You must have astonished him not a little," I observed.

Anthony, it seems, remained on the road looking down at her. He did not
offer to approach her, neither did he make any other movement or gesture.
Flora de Barral told me all this. She could see him through her tears,
blurred to a mere shadow on the white road, and then again becoming more
distinct, but always absolutely still and as if lost in thought before a
strange phenomenon which demanded the closest possible attention.

Flora learned later that he had never seen a woman cry; not in that way,
at least. He was impressed and interested by the mysteriousness of the
effect. She was very conscious of being looked at, but was not able to
stop herself crying. In fact, she was not capable of any effort.
Suddenly he advanced two steps, stooped, caught hold of her hands lying
on her lap and pulled her up to her feet; she found herself standing
close to him almost before she realized 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