‘I have you,’ he said. ‘I shall not let you go till you tell me who you are. Spirit or goblin, wait while I see your face.’ He flung the hair from his eyes, and bent, and glared down. Nothing but the obscure crown of a little hat met his vision. His hands still gripped what they had caught. He thrust the right one into a nest of warmth, and, feeling a chin, forced it upwards. It brought into view a face, very white and, in that dimness, spiritual. Its eyes stared palely into his. He said, but in a tone into which doubt had crept, with some amazement:-- ‘Speak, if mortal speech be thine.’ He was answered, and breathlessly, though not as he expected. ‘And mortal feeling. Will you hurt me so? I am only a girl.’ Brion, releasing his hold, stepped back a pace. This voice was human to sweetness. ‘Art thou not a spirit?’ he stammered. ‘O! what spirit?’ said the voice. ‘Of her,’ he said, ‘that lies long ages murdered in the well yonder.’ The figure seemed to listen. ‘My shoulders should convince you,’ she said suddenly and plaintively. ‘I thought I felt a wild beast at them.’ He put his hands to his head. ‘Have I done so foul a thing? I took you for a ghost. Alack, what savage must you think me!’ He held out his arms, entreating: ‘I prithee let me raise thee’--but she would not accept his help, and got to her feet unaided. She trembled a little, leaning against the tree, and held one hand to her bosom. He could see her now quite clearly--a young girl, something less than his own age. ‘O!’ she said: ‘Methinks I shall faint!’ He was ill with remorse. In the half light her feminine frailty was even exaggerated to him. She seemed a thing of china a rough touch might have broken, and he had treated her with barbarous violence. ‘What have I done!’ he cried. ‘Will you ever forgive me!’ He darted forward, and, though she resisted weakly, put an arm about her. ‘Nay, you will fall else,’ he said. Still she struggled, panting to free herself. ‘Nay!’ he pleaded. ‘I am well again. It has passed. I entreat you, release me. Are you all wild men here?’ ‘I took you for a ghost, I say.’ ‘Mayhap I am one.’ ‘Not with this warmth and softness.’ She tore herself free, and backed from him. A ray of the growing sunlight had found a passage through the green and fastened with its lips upon her face. It was a very pretty one, sweet as tinted wax; and the mouth was blushing to that kiss. Gazing on it, some sense, hitherto unfelt, unknown, opened to life in Brion like a delivered bud. ‘Boy!’ said the girl, with disdain: ‘Boy!’ ‘I shall be a man betimes,’ said Brion; ‘and before you are a woman.’ She opened her lips as if to retort, found nothing to say, and moved to go. Her manner was all at once stately and self-possessed. She walked like a proud little lady, and, turning her head over her shoulder, bade her assailant a stiff good-morrow.