When the service was over, he walked in the way of another

existence out of the church. As he went down the church-path

with his sister, behind the woman and child, the little girl

suddenly broke from her mother's hand, and slipped back with

quick, almost invisible movement, and was picking at something

almost under Brangwen's feet. Her tiny fingers were fine and

quick, but they missed the red button.

"Have you found something?" said Brangwen to her.

And he also stooped for the button. But she had got it, and

she stood back with it pressed against her little coat, her

black eyes flaring at him, as if to forbid him to notice her.

Then, having silenced him, she turned with a swift

"Mother----," and was gone down the path.

The mother had stood watching impassive, looking not at the

child, but at Brangwen. He became aware of the woman looking at

him, standing there isolated yet for him dominant in her foreign

existence.

He did not know what to do, and turned to his sister. But the

wide grey eyes, almost vacant yet so moving, held him beyond

himself.

"Mother, I may have it, mayn't I?" came the child's proud,

silvery tones. "Mother"-she seemed always to be calling her

mother to remember her-"mother"-and she had nothing to continue

now her mother had replied "Yes, my child." But, with ready

invention, the child stumbled and ran on, "What are those

people's names?"

Brangwen heard the abstract: "I don't know, dear."

He went on down the road as if he were not living inside

himself, but somewhere outside.

"Who was that person?" his sister Effie asked.

"I couldn't tell you," he answered unknowing.

"She's somebody very funny," said Effie, almost in

condemnation. "That child's like one bewitched."

"Bewitched--how bewitched?" he repeated.

"You can see for yourself. The mother's plain, I must

say--but the child is like a changeling. She'd be about

thirty-five."

But he took no notice. His sister talked on.

"There's your woman for you," she continued. "You'd better

marry her." But still he took no notice. Things were as

they were.

Another day, at tea-time, as he sat alone at table, there

came a knock at the front door. It startled him like a portent.

No one ever knocked at the front door. He rose and began

slotting back the bolts, turning the big key. When he had opened

the door, the strange woman stood on the threshold.




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