’I put on the dress and soon followed her.  When I reached the tapestried room there was Mr. D’Arcy talking to her in a voice so gentle, tender, and caressing, that it seemed impossible the rough voice I had heard bellowing through the passage could have come from the same mouth, and Mrs. Titwing was looking into his face with the delighted smile of a child who was being forgiven by its father for some trifling offence.  As I stood and looked at them I said to myself, “Truly I am in a land of wonders."’

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,