She was a slightly-made girl with a noticeable daintiness of movement. Under her wide-brimmed hat her face showed small and pale, and her hair was of a light flaxen hue. Rupert knitted his brow, and his pace quickened instinctively. The girl walked with her eyes on the ground, oblivious of his approach. Another moment and they were side by side, and Rupert gave a cry of recognition. "Lilith! It is Lilith! What an extraordinary chance, to meet you here! My dear Lilith, I am so pleased to see you." And indeed there was unmistakable pleasure in his voice; the somewhat worn face lightened with animation. He gripped the girl's hand with eager fingers, and she smiled back at him, a calm, unperturbed smile, as though she had parted from him but an hour before. "How do you do, Rupert? Are you staying down here? Is Mrs Dempster with you?" "Yes. We have taken the house just behind those trees. Do you know it? You cross the next bridge, and follow the lane to the left." "Yes, I know it. I'm staying at the Inn." Lilith walked by his side, her eyes quietly searching his face, but having vouchsafed these bare words of information, she added nothing more. The silence lasted for several minutes, nevertheless it was with an overwhelming impression of answering a question, that Rupert spoke again, saying slowly: "She is better, but she is not cured. The attacks of depression come on less frequently, but they still come. We are tring to ward off another at this moment. She grew tired of the East. For a time she delighted in it, and the novelty took her out of herself; but it became wearisome--the eternal glare, the absence of green, the medley of tongues. She wanted to come home. We've been wandering about for the last four months, and landed here last week. It's a charming spot, and _peaceful_. It ought to do her good!" There was an appeal in his voice which a woman's ear should have been quick to read, but Lilith made no response. She turned her strange, expressionless eyes first on the silent, shaded canal, then on the river, sparkling in the sun, its waters beating against the jagged rocks. Until that moment Rupert had regarded the two streams from an artistic standpoint only, now of a sudden they seemed charged with a spiritual meaning. Peace and storm, stagnation and action, life and death,--he saw them all in the contrast between those two streams, and for the first time a doubt crept into his mind whether he had done well for Eve in shielding her from the great current of life, and lapping her round with eternal calm. He turned abruptly to the girl and put another question: "Will you come with me now and see her? I think perhaps you might do her good."