Why not walk on and on? In time real wholesome weariness would come; he could sleep at ease in some pleasant wayside inn, without once meeting the eyes that stood as it were like a window between himself and a shrewd incredulous scoffing world that would turn him into a monstrosity and his story into a fable. And in a little while, perhaps in three days, he would awaken out of this engrossing nightmare, and know he was free, this black dog gone from his back, and (as the old saying expressed it without any one dreaming what it really meant) his own man again. How astonished Sheila would be; how warmly she would welcome him!... Oh yes, of course she would. He came again to a standstill. No voice answered him out of that illimitable gold and blue. Nothing seemed aware of him. But as he stood there, doubtful as Cain on the outskirts of the unknown, he caught the sound of a footfall on the lonely and stone-strewn path. The ground sloped steeply away to the left, and slowly mounting the hillside came mildly on an old lady he knew, a Miss Sinnet, an old friend of his mother’s. There was just such a little seat as that other he knew so well, on the brow of the hill. He made his way to it, intending to sit quietly there until the little old lady had passed by. Up and up she came. Her large bonnet appeared, and then her mild white face, inclined a little towards him as she ascended. Evidently this very seat was her goal; and evasion was impossible. Evasion!... Memory rushed back and set his pulses beating. He turned boldly to the sun, and the old lady, with a brief glance into his face, composed herself at the other end of the little seat. She gazed out of a gentle reverie into the golden valley. And so they sat a while. And almost as if she had felt the bond of acquaintance between them, she presently sighed, and addressed him: ‘A very, very, beautiful view, sir.’ Lawford paused, then turned a gloomy, earnest face, gilded with sunshine. ‘Beautiful, indeed,’ he said, ‘but not for me. No, Miss Sinnet, not for me.’ The old lady gravely turned and examined the aquiline profile. ‘Well, I confess,’ she remarked urbanely, ‘you have the advantage of me.’ Lawford smiled uneasily. ‘Believe me, it is little advantage.’ ‘My sight,’ said Miss Sinnet precisely, ‘is not so good as I might wish; though better perhaps than I might have hoped; I fear I am not much wiser; your face is still unfamiliar to me.’ ‘It is not unfamiliar to me,’ said Lawford. Whose trickery was this? he thought, putting such affected stuff into his mouth. A faint lightening of pity came into the silvery and scrupulous countenance. ‘Ah, dear me, yes,’ she said courteously. Lawford rested a lean hand on the seat. ‘And have you,’ he asked, ‘not the least recollection in the world of my face?’