"Oh," I cried, coming to a pause beside a holly-tree so marvellously sparkling with waterdrops on every curved spine of it that it took my breath away: "let's talk no more thoughts. They are only mice gnawing. I can hear _them_ at night."
"You cannot sleep?" he inquired, with so grave a concern that I laughed outright.
"Sleep! with that Mr Crimble on my nerves?" I gave a little nod in my mind to my holly, and we went on.
"Crimble?" he repeated. His eyes, greenish at that moment, shot an angry glance at me from under their lids. "Who is he?"
"A friend, a friend," I replied, "and, poor man, as they say, in love. Calm yourself, Mr Jealousy; not with me. I am three sizes too small. With Miss Bowater. But there," I went on, in dismay that mere vanity should have let this cat out of its bag, "that's not my secret. We mustn't talk of that either. What I really want to tell you is that we haven't much time. I am going away. Let's talk of Me. Oh, Mr Anon, shall I ever be born again, and belong to my own world?"
It seemed a kind of mournful serenity came over his face. "You say you are going away"; he whispered, pointing with his finger, "and yet you expect me to talk about _that_."
We were come to the brink of a clear rain-puddle, perhaps three or four feet wide, in the moss-greened, stony path, and "_that_" was the image of myself which lay on its surface against the far blue of the sky--the under-scarlet of my cape, my face, fair hair, eyes. I trembled a little. His own reflection troubled me more than he did himself.
"Come," I said, laying a hand on his sleeve, "the time's so short, and indeed I _must_ see your house, you know: you have seen mine. Ah, but you should see Lyndsey and Chizzel Hill, and the stream in my father's garden. I often hear _that_ at night, Mr Anon. I would like to have died a child, however long I must live."
But now the cloud had completely swallowed up the sun; a cold gust of wind swept hooting down on us, and I clung to his arm. We pushed on, emerged at last from the rusty gates, its eagles green and scaling, and came to the farm. But not in time. A cloud of hail had swirled down; beating on our heads and shoulders. It all but swept me up into the air. Catching hands, we breasted and edged on up the rough, miry lane towards a thatched barn, open on one side and roofing a red and blue wagon. Under this we scrambled, and tingling all over with the buffetings of the wind and the pelting of hailstones, I sat laughing and secure, watching, over my sodden skirts and shoes, the sweeping, pattering drifts paling the green.