him? She had practised various expressions before the glass, and had
almost decided to look up as he passed and flash a glance of puzzled
recognition from her eyes. She thought she could do it satisfactorily
and to-day she meant to cross the bridge for the first time. He had
been riding over the bridge that afternoon and what had happened once
might happen again. Moreover, she had a feeling that across the water
there was something waiting for her. Certainly behind the trees
clothing the gorge there was the real country, with cows and sheep and
horses in the meadows, with the possibility of rabbits in the lanes,
and she had never yet seen a rabbit running wild. There were
innumerable possibilities on that farther side.

She crossed the bridge, stood to look up and down the river, to watch
the gulls, white against the green, to consider the ant-like hurrying
of the people on the road below and the clustered houses on the city
side, a medley of shapes and colours, rising in terraces, the whole
like some immense castle guarding the entrance to the town. And as
before, carriages and carts went and came over, schoolgirls on
bicycles, babies in perambulators, but this time there was no man on a
horse. She knew that this mattered very little; her stimulated
excitement was hardly more than salt and pepper to a dish already
appetizing enough, and now and then as she went along the road on a
level with the tree-tops in the gorge and had glimpses of water and of
rock, she had to remind herself of her preoccupation.

She passed big houses with their flowery gardens and then, suddenly
timorous, she decided not to go too far afield. She might get lost,
she might meet nasty people or horned beasts. A little path on her
right hand had an inviting look; it might lead her down through the
trees to the water's edge. It was all strewn and richly brown with