Martin Valliant saw her walk along the broken bridge and stand there baffled, and though there was the one obvious and most natural way of crossing the water, it never entered Martin’s head that she would choose it. She came back to the landward side, and he lost sight of her in a little hollow beside the bridge-head that was hidden by bushes and young trees. He was still wondering what she would do, and whether he had the courage to go down and confess himself and help her, when he saw her rise out of the green foam of the foliage like Venus rising out of the sea. She had thrown off her clothes, and went as Mother Nature had made her, a beautiful white creature crowned by her dark hair. In looking at her Martin forgot that he was a man, forgot his vows, forgot that there was such a thing as sin. For there seemed no shame in her beauty, and in that white shape of hers kissed by the sun. Beyond the bridge a little grassy headland jutted into the mere where the water was clear of weeds. Mellis made her way toward it, like Eve walking the earth before sin was born. She stepped down into the water, waded a pace or two, and then glided forward on her bosom, the water rippling over her shoulders. Thirty breast strokes earned her across. She climbed out at what had been an old mooring stage for the big flat-bottomed boat that had been used for fishing. For a moment Martin saw her stand white and straight in the sunlight; then her hands went up and her black hair came clouding down. It enveloped her like a cloak, hanging to the level of her knees, like night shrouding the day. She seemed to have no thought of being watched or spied upon; the place was a wilderness; she went as Nature made her. Then she was lost among the orchard trees, whose bloom was as white as her body, and a great change came over Martin Valliant. He let his head drop on the root of a beech tree; he shut his eyes, spread his arms like a suppliant. In losing sight of her he had rediscovered himself, that striving, perplexed, mistrustful self nurtured on self-starvation and physical nothingness. A passion of wonder, shame, and doubt shook him. He lay prone at the feet of Nature, trying to see the face of his God through the smoke of a new sacrifice. Had he sinned, had he shamed himself? And yet a deep and passionate voice cried out in him, fiercely denying that he had erred. What wickedness was there in chancing to gaze upon a creature whom God had created, upon a beauty that was unsoiled? He strove with himself, with clenched hands and closed eyes. And presently a great stillness seemed to fall upon his heart. It was like the silence of the dawn, born to be broken only by the singing of birds. He opened his eyes, looked about him at the green spaces, the blue sky, the water shining in the valley. What had happened to him? Why all this wrestling and anguish? Where was the thing that men called sin when earth and the heavens were so beautiful?