not have sunk as it now did when I thought of the gulf between her
and me. Down I sat upon a grave, and looked at her with a feeling
quite new to me.

This was a phase of cripplehood I had not contemplated. She soon left
the tower, and made her appearance at the church door again. After
locking it, which she did by thrusting a piece of stick through the
handle of the key, she came and stood over me. But I turned my eyes
away and gazed across the sea, and tried to deceive myself into
believing that the waves, and the gulls, and the sails dreaming on
the sky-line, and the curling clouds of smoke that came now and then
from a steamer passing Dullingham Point were interesting me deeply.
There was a remoteness about the little girl now, since I had seen
her unusual agility, and I was trying to harden my heart against her.
Loneliness I felt was best for me. She did not speak, but stood
looking at me. I turned my eyes round and saw that she was looking at
my crutches, which were lying beside me aslant the green hillock
where I sat. Her face had turned grave and pitiful.

'Oh! I forgot,' she said. 'I wish I had not run away from you now.'

'You may run where you like for what I care,' I said. But the words
were very shaky, and I had no sooner said them than I wished them
back. She made no reply for some time, and I sat plucking the
wild-flowers near my hands, and gazing again across the sea. At last
she said,

'Would you like to come in our garden? It's such a nice garden.'

I could resist her no longer. That voice would have drawn me had she