On her soft floppy hat and over the shoulders of her three-quarters grey coat I saw the rime of fine rain gather. It became a sort of soft moss of rain, that gave her figure a faintly discerned outline of light. Though her wrists were damp and dark, and her skirts straight and heavy, I still did not think of passing her the umbrella; it is wonderful how many small things escape you when you have just been asked whether you have put an end to a young man's life. The rain came on still more sharply. I saw it gleam on the backs of her kid gloves....
It never occurred to me to wonder how she knew. I suppose I ought to have wondered this, but I gave it no thought. Instead, I was wondering why I had never noticed before what her eyes were like--why, indeed, I had thought them to be quite different. Had you asked me that morning what Louie Causton's eyes were like I should first have rummaged in my memory for who Louie Causton was, then have dismissed them as ordinary and a sort of grey, and so have missed a wonder. Grey? Yes, they were grey, but that is not saying anything. And perhaps after all it was not the eyes that held me. Perhaps the eyes were no more than rounds of crystal between us, pure crystal, hiding nothing. Better still, perhaps they were of that substance which, placed across itself, allows no light to pass, but, turned parallel, ceases to intercept. Formerly I had seen those tourmaline rounds of Louie Causton's grey eyes as it were transversely placed, opaque, riddling, mocking, impenetrable; now, quicker than the flicker of a camera-shutter, they had changed, and, for me, would never again change back. I had seen down into her soul. Her physical form, three hours before, had not been more openly offered to my gazing than was that measureless deep interior she showed me now....
And that she too had plunged to the bottom of my own soul, her question was sufficient evidence.
And now, as that vision of her spirit, stark and piercing as Billy Izzard's of her body had been, must abide with me for ever, there was no special need for hurrying matters. Though I had known it not, it was for that last stripping look that I had whispered so breathlessly to her over the screen; and she, unlike me, had known why she had whispered back. So, the thing being now done, our time was our own. As slowly as I had retreated to the railings, I advanced from them again. Once more I held the umbrella over her.