I couldn't have to her the manner of treating it as a mere detail that I was face to face with a part of what, at our last meeting, we had had such a scene about; but while I was trying to think of some manner that I _could_ have she said quite colourlessly, though somehow as if she might never see me again: "Good-bye.

I'm going to take my walk." "All alone ?" She looked round the great bleak cliff-top.

"With whom should I go?
Besides I like to be alone--for the present." This gave me the glimmer of a vision that she regarded her disfigurement as temporary, and the confidence came to me that she would never, for her happiness, cease to be a creature of illusions.

It enabled me to exclaim, smiling brightly and feeling indeed idiotic: "Oh I shall see you again! But I hope you'll have a very pleasant walk." "All my walks are pleasant, thank you--they do me such a lot of good." She was as quiet as a mouse, and her words seemed to me stupendous in their wisdom.

"I take several a day," she continued.