Then he drew away from the table.

He looked at her as he would speak, but checked on the thought.

He turned, and so, without another word, departed, and left us sitting there together.
It was then that we had our talk; or, rather, that she talked, whilst I sat listening.

And presently as I listened, I came gradually once more under the spell of which I had more than once that day been on the point of casting off the yoke.
For, after all, you are to discern in what I have written here, between what were my feelings at the time and what are my criticisms of to-day in the light of the riper knowledge to which I have come.

The handling of a sword had thrilled me strangely, as I have shown.