'He is very pretty,' she said meditatively, 'but he has not got
love-eyes like you and Snap, and I don't think I could love any
little boy so very, _very_ much now who wasn't lame.'

She loved me in spite of my lameness; she loved me because I was
lame, so that if I had not fallen from the cliffs, if I had sustained
my glorious position among the boys of Raxton and Graylingham as
'Fighting Hal.' I might never have won little Winifred's love. Here
was a revelation of the mingled yarn of life, that I remember struck
me even at that childish age.

I began to think I might, in spite of the undoubted crutches, resume
my old place as the luckiest boy along the sands. She loved me
because I was lame! Those who say that physical infirmity does not
feminise the character have not had my experience. No more talk for
me that morning. In such a mood as that there can be no talk. I sat
in a silent dream, save when a sweet sob of delight would come up
like a bubble from the heaving waters of my soul. I had passed into
that rare and high mood when life's afflictions are turned by love to
life's deepest, holiest joys. I had begun early to learn and know the
gamut of the affections.

'When, you leave me here and go home to Wales you will never forget
me. Winnie?'

'Never, never!' she said, as she helped me from the ferns which were
still as wet with dew as though it had been raining. 'I will think of
you every night before I go to sleep, and always end my prayers as I
did that first night after I saw you so lonely in the churchyard.'