Yet that prospect was blurred and made hideous in the morning by the sudden incursion into it all of that heavy young man named Gavin Hockley. I had had my breakfast (and a hearty one at that) in the old low-roofed coffee-room, and was just making up my mind to sally forth and do a long day's work, when the door was thrust open lumberingly and brutally, and Hockley strode in. Whether or not he knew from my guardian that I was there it is impossible to say; he looked over me, or through me, as on the occasion of our first meeting, and lumbered out again, slamming the door behind him. Remembering all that I had thought about him, and remembering my dream, I was too much upset by his sudden entry into the room even to be able to speak to him; he was gone before I had made up my mind what to do. When I came out into the little hall of the place, I saw him lounging with one elbow on the low counter at one side, talking to the girl who stood among the bottles and glasses behind it; and one heavy hand was on his hip, and in that hand was his stick, just as it had been when he stood on the steps and looked down at me. The little place seemed full of him--poisoned by him; I was glad to get out into the sweet air of the little town, and further than that into the woods and the fields. I like to think of that morning now: I have seen myself, in imagination, going so often down a long, dusty road, with my easel and colour box slung across my shoulders; I believe I sang softly to myself as I went. For the spring was in my heart and in my blood, and life was very, very beautiful. I see myself leaving the road behind me, and turning into a little wood near at hand, and sitting down to sketch the glories that stretched before me. But I was like a butterfly that morning, in that all was so beautiful that nothing wholly pleased me; I went deeper on into the wood, and started again to paint. And lost myself in my work and in a waking dream, until I was aroused by the sound of a young girl singing. (I lay down my pen here for a moment or two, because my eyes are dim, and I cannot go on. The sunlight and the trees and all the mystery and the beauty of the woods are with me again, and the dear voice of the woman I was to love through all my life floats to me again, and stirs something within my sad heart that was stirred that morning, never to be still again. I close my eyes for a moment, and cover them with my hands; and I am back there once more, looking at her wonderingly as she comes towards me through the trees.) I will not try to describe her; I only know that she was very, very fair, and that she seemed almost a spirit of beauty, coming out of the wood towards me. She was Nature--and Love--and Life--and Laughter--all embodied; I could only sit and watch her; it did not occur to me even to ask myself who she was.