of having seen her poor
bewildered, scared soul without its veils. But I was curious, too; or,
to render myself justice without false modesty--I was anxious; anxious to
know a little more.

I felt like a blackmailer all the same when I made my attempt with a
light-hearted remark.

"And so you gave up that walk you proposed to take?"

"Yes, I gave up the walk," she said slowly before raising her downcast
eyes. When she did so it was with an extraordinary effect. It was like
catching sight of a piece of blue sky, of a stretch of open water. And
for a moment I understood the desire of that man to whom the sea and sky
of his solitary life had appeared suddenly incomplete without that glance
which seemed to belong to them both. He was not for nothing the son of a
poet. I looked into those unabashed eyes while the girl went on, her
demure appearance and precise tone changed to a very earnest expression.
Woman is various indeed.

"But I want you to understand, Mr. . . . " she had actually to think of
my name . . . "Mr. Marlow, that I have written to Mrs. Fyne that I
haven't been--that I have done nothing to make Captain Anthony behave to
me as he had behaved. I haven't. I haven't. It isn't my doing. It
isn't my fault--if she likes to put it in that way. But she, with her
ideas, ought to understand that I couldn't, that I couldn't . . . I know
she hates me now. I think she never liked me. I think nobody ever cared
for me. I was told once nobody could care for me; and I think it is
true. At any rate I can't forget it."

Her abominable experience with the governess had implanted in her unlucky
breast a lasting doubt, an ineradicable suspicion of herself and of
others. I said:

"Remember, Miss de Barral, that to be fair you must trust a man
altogether--or not at all."

She dropped her eyes suddenly. I thought I heard a faint sigh. I tried
to take a light tone again, and yet it seemed impossible to get off the
ground which gave me my standing with her.

"Mrs. Fyne is absurd. She's an excellent woman, but really you could not
be expected to throw away your chance of life simply that she might
cherish a good opinion of your memory. That would be excessive."

"It was not of my life that I was thinking while Captain Anthony was--was
speaking to me," said Flora de Barral with an effort.

I told her that she was wrong then. She ought to have been thinking of
her life, and not only of her life but of the