VI

'Mr. D'Arcy and I,' said Winifred, 'went out of the house at the

back, walked across a roughly paved stable-yard, and passed through a

gate and entered a meadow. Then we walked along a stream about as

wide as one of our Welsh brooks, but I found it to be a backwater

connected with a river. For some time neither of us spoke a word. He

seemed lost in thought, and my mind was busy with what I intended to

say to him, for I was fully determined to get some light thrown upon

the mystery.

'When we reached the river bank we turned towards the left, and

walked until we reached a weir, and there we sat down upon a fallen

willow tree, the inside of which was all touchwood. Then he said,

'"You are silent, Miss Wynne."

'"And you are silent," I said.

'"My silence is easily explained," he said. "I was waiting to hear

some remark fall from you as to these meadows and the river, which

you have seen so often."

'"Which I see now for the first time, you mean."

'"Miss Wynne," he said, looking earnestly in my face, "you and I have

taken this walk together nearly every day for months."

'"That," I said, "is--is quite impossible."

'"It is true," he said. And then again we sat silent.

'Then I said to him with great firmness, "Mr. D'Arcy, I'm only a

peasant girl, but I'm Welsh; I have faith in you, faith in your

goodness and faith in your kindness to me; but I must insist upon

knowing how I came here, and how you and I were brought together."

'He smiled, and said, "I was right in thinking that your face

expresses a good deal of what we call character. I should have

preferred waiting for a day or two before relating all I have to

tell," he said, "in answer to what you ask, but as you _insist_ upon

having it now," with a playful kind of smile, "it would be ill-bred

for me to insist that you must wait. But before I begin, would it not

be better if you were to tell me something of what occurred to

yourself when you were taken ill at Raxton?"

'"Then will your story begin where mine breaks off?" I said.

'"We shall see that," he said, "as soon as you have ended yours."

'"Do you know Raxton?" I said.

'At first he seemed to hesitate about his reply, and then said,

'"No, I do not."

'I then told him in as few words as I could our adventures on the

sands on the night of the landslip, and my search for my father's

body afterwards, until I suddenly sank down in a fit. When I had

finished Mr. D'Arcy was silent, and was evidently lost in thought. At

last he said,

'"My story, I perceive, cannot begin where yours breaks off. I first

became acquainted with you in the studio of a famous painter named

Wilderspin, one of the noblest-minded and most admirable men now

breathing, but a great eccentric."

'"Why, Mr. D'Arcy, I never was in a studio in my life until to-day,"

I said.

'"You mean, Miss Wynne, that you were not consciously there," he

said. "But in that studio you certainly were, and the artist, who

reverenced you as a being from another world, was painting your face

in a beautiful picture. While he was doing this you were taken

seriously ill, and your life was despaired of. It was then that I

brought you into the country, and here you have been living and

benefiting by the kind services of Mrs. Titwing for a long time."

'"And you know nothing of my history previously to seeing me in the

London studio?" I asked.

'"All that I could ever learn about that," said he, in what seemed to

me a rather evasive tone, "I had to gather from the incoherent and

rambling talk of Wilderspin, a religious enthusiast whose genius is

very nearly akin to mania. He was so struck by you that he actually

believed you to be not a corporeal woman at all; he believed you had

been sent from the spirit-world by his dead mother to enable him to

paint a great picture."

'"Oh, I must see him, and make him tell me all," I said.

'"Yes," said he, "but not yet."

'What Mr. D'Arcy told me,' said Winnie, 'affected me so deeply that I

remained silent for a long time. Then came a thought which made me

say,

'"You. too, are a painter, Mr. D'Arcy?"

'"Yes," he said.

'"During the months that I have been living here have you used me as

your model?"

'"No; but that was not because I did not wish to do so."

'Then he suddenly looked in my face and said,

'"Is your family entirely Welsh, Miss Wynne?"

'"Entirely," I said. "But why did you not use me as your model, Mr.

D'Arcy?"

'"Poor Wilderspin believed you to be a spiritual body," he said; "I

did not. I knew that you were a young lady in an unconscious

condition. To have painted you in such a condition and without the

possibility of getting your consent would have been sacrilege, even

if I had painted you as a Madonna."

'I could not speak, his words and tone were so tender. He broke the

silence by saying,

'"Miss Wynne, there is one thing in connection with you that puzzles

me very much. You speak of yourself as though you were a kind of

Welsh peasant girl, and yet your conversation--well, I mustn't tell

you what I think of that."

'This made me laugh outright, for ladies who called on Miss Dalrymple

used to make the same remark.

'"Mr. D'Arcy," I said, "you are harbouring the greatest little

impostor in the British Islands. I am the mere mocking-bird of one of

the most cultivated women living. My true note is that of a simple

Welsh bird."

'"A Welsh warbler," he said, with a smile, "but who was the original

of the impostor?"

'"Miss Dalrymple," I said.

'"Miss Dalrymple, the writer!--why I knew her years ago--before you

were born."

'Our talk had been so lively that we had not noticed the passage of

time, nor had we noticed that the clouds had been gathering for a

summer shower. Suddenly the rain fell heavily; although we ran to the

house, we were quite wet by the time we got in.

'We found poor Mrs. Titwing in a great state of excitement on account

of the rain, and also because the dinner had been waiting for nearly

an hour. That scamper in the rain, and the laughing and joking at our

predicament, seemed to bring us closer together than anything else

could have done. Mr. D'Arcy told Mrs. Titwing to take me to my room

to change my dress for dinner, and he seemed quite disappointed when

I told him that I could eat no dinner, and would like to retire to my

room for the night. The fact was that the events of that wonderful

day had exhausted all my powers; every nerve within me seemed crying

out for sleep.

'I went to my room, dismissed Mrs. Titwing, and went to bed at once.

But no sooner had I got into bed than I began to perceive that,

instead of sleep, a long wakeful night was before me. Mr. D'Arcy's

story about finding me in a London studio took entire possession of

my mind. How did I get there? Where had I been and what had been my

adventures before I got there? Why did the painter, in whose studio

Mr. D'Arcy found me, believe that I had been super-naturally sent to

him? I shuddered as a thousand dreadful thoughts flowed into my mind.

"Mr. D'Arcy," I said to myself, "must know more than he has told

me." Then, of course, came thoughts about you. I wondered why you had

allowed me to drift away from you in this manner. True, I was

probably removed from Raxton immediately after my illness, when you

were very ill, as I knew; but then you had recovered!'