I was quite at a loss as to what she was driving at.

There was a newness, a strangeness about her; sometimes she struck me as mad, sometimes as frightfully sane.

We had a meal somewhere--a meal that broke the current of her speech--and then, in the late afternoon, took a by-road and wandered in secluded valleys.

I had been ill; trouble of the nerves, brooding, the monotony of life in the shadow of unsuccess.

I had an errand in this part of the world and had been approaching it deviously, seeking the normal in its quiet hollows, trying to get back to my old self.