"If it were not for my flowers," said she, with a sudden gravity, which did not surprise me, for I was prepared now for any change of mood in this capricious, strange and fascinating woman, "I think I should go mad. You can't tell how I hate the winter. I lie listening to the complaining winds until they become human shapes craving admittance and shelter from the piercing cold. There is a winter's wind that blows here with a strange cry!... Do you think the winds spirits? I do sometimes, Mr. Thorburn; nothing else, you see, sobs and cries like they do. But who would not scream to be pierced through and through with hail, wrapped in the burning lightning, and shattered by the hateful thunder?" She paused, lifting her luminous eyes to me. "You have read a good deal," said she, "and will know more than I. Do, please, tell me what spirits do in winter, when the air is so frozen it cannot blow, and when the stars have gone out under the clouds." "I assure you," I said, puzzling myself to reconcile her language with her eyes, which seemed to me brilliant with intelligence, "I have never studied these matters. I know nothing of them. They are idle speculations, and you should not indulge in them. They will make your solitude very oppressive." "They make my solitude more than oppressive at times. But if the winds are tormented spirits, those flowers are good angels. They give me as much pleasure as the winds give me pain. All those flowers have souls. I am quite sure of that. But it is not pleasant to think, for I fear one morning I shall find them all dead through their souls having taken wing." She pushed some transparent hairs behind her ear. "I wish, Mrs. Fraser," I said, "you would do me the favour to inspect my garden. I employ two gardeners; but the three of us do not approach you in the delicacy of your taste." "When do you want me to come?" "Now, if you will." "Not now. I must have time to consider. I hardly ever leave my house, and then only for a short walk. And did not I tell you that I visit no one?" "But you will oblige me in this?" "I am not sure. You have no claims on me that I should favour you more than any one else. I will think over it, and tell you to-morrow. Will you come to watch me again at the gate?" "If I may?" "Oh, you _may_. The fields are not mine; and I have no right to forbid trespassers." "I will come to the gate at the hour I met you to-day." "Yes." "And you will accompany me over my grounds." "I shall see. Now I must go in." She held out her hand, I took and retained it. "Before I leave you, Mrs. Fraser, will you tell me that my society is not distasteful--that you no longer look upon me as an intruder?" She did not offer to withdraw her hand. It seemed to me, indeed, that she hardly knew I held it.