The picture of Winifred that had dwelt in my mind so long was that of a beautiful child. The radiant vision of the girl before me came on me by surprise and dazzled me. Tall and slim she was now, but the complexion had not altered at all; the eyes seemed young and childlike as ever. When our eyes met she blushed, then turned pale, and took hold of the top of a seat near which she was standing. She came along the aisle close to us, gliding and slipping through the crowd, and passed out of the porch. My mother had seen my agitation, and had moved on in a state of haughty indignation. I had no room, however, at that moment for considerations of any person but one. I hurried out of the church, and, following Winifred, grasped her gloved hand. 'Winifred, you are come,' I said; 'I have been longing to see you.' She again turned pale and then blushed scarlet. Next she looked down me as if she had expected to see something which she did not see, and when her eyes were upraised again something in them gave me a strange fancy that she was disappointed to miss my crutches. 'Why didn't you write to me from Wales, Winifred? Why didn't you answer my letter years ago?' She hesitated, then said, 'My aunt wouldn't let me, sir.' 'Wouldn't let you answer it! and why?' Again she hesitated-- 'I--I don't know, sir.' 'You _do_ know, Winifred. I see that you know, and you shall tell me. Why didn't your aunt let you answer my letter?' Winifred's eyes looked into mine beseechingly. Then that light of playful humour, which I remembered so well, shot like a sunbeam across and through them as she replied-- 'My aunt said we must both forget our pretty dream.' Almost before the words were out, however, the sunbeam fled from her eyes and was replaced by a look of terror. I now perceived that my mother, in passing to the carriage, had lingered on the gravel-path close to us, and had, of course, overheard the dialogue. She passed on with a look of hate. I thought it wise to bid Winifred good-bye and join my mother. As I stepped into the carriage I turned round and saw that Winifred was again looking wistfully at some particular part of me--looking with exactly that simple, frank, 'objective' expression with which I was familiar. 'I knew it was the crutches she missed,' I said to myself as I sat down by my mother's side; 'she'll have to love me now because I am _not_ lame.' I also knew something else: I must prepare for a conflict with my mother. My father, at this time in Switzerland, had written to say that he had been suffering acutely from an attack of what he called 'spasms.' He had 'been much subject to them of late, but no one considered them to be really dangerous.' During luncheon I felt that my mother's eyes were on me. After it was over she went to her room to write in answer to my father's letter, and then later on she returned to me.