But there was little chance, indeed, that such a recognition could take place. Certainly, now that, apart from her troubled and excited fears of the previous day, she more deliberately weighed the chances, she felt assured that in her rapid passage through the evening gloom, nothing could have betrayed her. And it was not probable that even in open daylight and in face-to-face encounter with him he would be likely to know her. She had recognized him almost at a glance, for not only was his dress composed of the same poor and scant material which had served him years before, but even in form and feature he seemed unchanged, his slight frame having gained no expansion as his manhood had progressed, while his face retained in every line the same soft and almost girlish expression. But with herself all things had altered. It was not merely that the poorly clad maiden who, with naked feet, well-tanned hands, and tangled and loosely hanging curls, had been wont to wander carelessly by the shore of a distant bay, had become a richly adorned matron of the imperial centre. Beyond all that, there was a greater change, which, though in its gradual progress almost inappreciable to one who had watched her day by day, could not but be remarked after a lapse of many years. The darker hair, the softer complexion, the suave smile into which the merry laugh of girlhood had little by little subsided, the more composed mien, replete with matronly dignity, the refinement of air and attitude insensibly resulting from long continued instinctive imitation, the superior development of figure--all these, as they were improvements in her former self, were also just so many effective disguises upon which she could safely rely, unless she were to provoke inordinate scrutiny by some unguarded action or expression. But all this she would earnestly guard against. She would even put no trust in the natural immunity of which her reason assured her, but would make everything doubly safe by totally refraining from any encounter with one whose recognition of her would be so painful.