The Woodlanders

For a moment he forgot his errand, till suddenly arousing himself he

addressed her, formally condoled with her, and made the usual

professional inquiries about what had happened to her, and where she

was hurt.

"That's what I want you to tell me," she murmured, in tones of

indefinable reserve. "I quite believe in you, for I know you are very

accomplished, because you study so hard."

"I'll do my best to justify your good opinion," said the young man,

bowing. "And none the less that I am happy to find the accident has

not been serious."

"I am very much shaken," she said.

"Oh yes," he replied; and completed his examination, which convinced

him that there was really nothing the matter with her, and more than

ever puzzled him as to why he had been fetched, since she did not

appear to be a timid woman. "You must rest a while, and I'll send

something," he said.

"Oh, I forgot," she returned. "Look here." And she showed him a little

scrape on her arm--the full round arm that was exposed. "Put some

court-plaster on that, please."

He obeyed. "And now," she said, "before you go I want to put a

question to you. Sit round there in front of me, on that low chair,

and bring the candles, or one, to the little table. Do you smoke? Yes?

That's right--I am learning. Take one of these; and here's a light."

She threw a matchbox across.

Fitzpiers caught it, and having lit up, regarded her from his new

position, which, with the shifting of the candles, for the first time

afforded him a full view of her face. "How many years have passed

since first we met!" she resumed, in a voice which she mainly

endeavored to maintain at its former pitch of composure, and eying him

with daring bashfulness.

"WE met, do you say?"

She nodded. "I saw you recently at an hotel in London, when you were

passing through, I suppose, with your bride, and I recognized you as

one I had met in my girlhood. Do you remember, when you were studying

at Heidelberg, an English family that was staying there, who used to

walk--"

"And the young lady who wore a long tail of rare-colored hair--ah, I

see it before my eyes!--who lost her gloves on the Great Terrace--who

was going back in the dusk to find them--to whom I said, 'I'll go for

them,' and you said, 'Oh, they are not worth coming all the way up

again for.' I DO remember, and how very long we stayed talking there! I

went next morning while the dew was on the grass: there they lay--the

little fingers sticking out damp and thin. I see them now! I picked

them up, and then--"