'When we reached the river bank we turned towards the left, and walked until we reached a weir, and there we sat down upon a fallen willow tree, the inside of which was all touchwood. Then he said, '"You are silent, Miss Wynne." '"And you are silent," I said. '"My silence is easily explained," he said. "I was waiting to hear some remark fall from you as to these meadows and the river, which you have seen so often." '"Which I see now for the first time, you mean." '"Miss Wynne," he said, looking earnestly in my face, "you and I have taken this walk together nearly every day for months." '"That," I said, "is--is quite impossible." '"It is true," he said. And then again we sat silent. 'Then I said to him with great firmness, "Mr. D'Arcy, I'm only a peasant girl, but I'm Welsh; I have faith in you, faith in your goodness and faith in your kindness to me; but I must insist upon knowing how I came here, and how you and I were brought together." 'He smiled, and said, "I was right in thinking that your face expresses a good deal of what we call character. I should have preferred waiting for a day or two before relating all I have to tell," he said, "in answer to what you ask, but as you _insist_ upon having it now," with a playful kind of smile, "it would be ill-bred for me to insist that you must wait. But before I begin, would it not be better if you were to tell me something of what occurred to yourself when you were taken ill at Raxton?" '"Then will your story begin where mine breaks off?" I said. '"We shall see that," he said, "as soon as you have ended yours." '"Do you know Raxton?" I said. 'At first he seemed to hesitate about his reply, and then said, '"No, I do not." 'I then told him in as few words as I could our adventures on the sands on the night of the landslip, and my search for my father's body afterwards, until I suddenly sank down in a fit. When I had finished Mr. D'Arcy was silent, and was evidently lost in thought. At last he said, '"My story, I perceive, cannot begin where yours breaks off. I first became acquainted with you in the studio of a famous painter named Wilderspin, one of the noblest-minded and most admirable men now breathing, but a great eccentric." '"Why, Mr. D'Arcy, I never was in a studio in my life until to-day," I said. '"You mean, Miss Wynne, that you were not consciously there," he said. "But in that studio you certainly were, and the artist, who reverenced you as a being from another world, was painting your face in a beautiful picture. While he was doing this you were taken seriously ill, and your life was despaired of. It was then that I brought you into the country, and here you have been living and benefiting by the kind services of Mrs. Titwing for a long time." '"And you know nothing of my history previously to seeing me in the London studio?" I asked.