‘Love and beauty!’ said Winnie.  ’Even if a woman’s beauty did not depend for its existence upon the eyes that look upon it, I should want to give more to my hero than love and beauty.  I should want to give him help in the battle of life, Henry.  I should want to buckle on his armour, and sharpen the point of his lance, and whet the edge of his sword; a rich man’s armour is bank-notes, and Winnie knows nothing of such paper.  His spear, I am told, is a bullion bar, and Winnie’s fingers scarcely know the touch of gold.’

‘Then you agree, Winnie, with these strange views of your aunt?’

’I do partly agree with them now.  Ever since I saw you to-day in the churchyard I have partly agreed with them.’

‘And why?’

’Because already prosperity or bodily vigour or something has changed your eyes and changed the tone of your voice.’

’You mean that my eyes are no longer so full of trouble; and as to my voice—­how should my voice not change, seeing that it was the voice of a child when you last listened to it?’

’It is impossible for me even now, after I have thought about it so much, to put into words that expression in your eyes which won me as a child.  All I knew at the time was that it fascinated me.  And as I now recall it, all I know is that your gaze then seemed full of something which I can give a name to now, though I did not understand it then—­the pathos and tenderness and yearning, which come, as I have been told, from suffering, and that your voice seemed to have the same message.  That expression and that tone are gone—­they will, of course, never return to you now.  Your life is, and will be, too prosperous for that.  But still I hope and believe that in a year’s time prosperity will not have worked in you any of the mischief that my aunt feared.  For you have a noble nature, Henry, and to spoil you will not be easy.  You will never be the dear little Henry I loved, but you will still be nobler and greater than other men, I think.’

’Do you really mean that my lameness was a positive attraction to you?  Do you really mean that the very change in me which I thought would strengthen the bond between us—­my restoration to health—­weakens it?  That is impossible, Winnie.’

She remained silent for a time, as though lost in thought, and then said, ’I do not believe that any woman can understand the movements of her own heart where love is concerned.  My aunt used to say I was a strange girl, and I am afraid I am strange and perverse.  She used to say that in my affections I was like no other creature in the world.’

‘How should Winifred be like any other creature in the world?’ I said.  ’She would not be Winifred if she were.  But what did your aunt mean?’

’When I was quite a little child she noticed that I was neglecting a favourite mavis which I used to delight to listen to as he warbled from his wicker cage.  She watched me, and found that my attention was all given to a wounded bird that I had picked up on the Capel Curig road.  “Winnie,” she said, “nothing can ever win your love until it has first won your pity.  A bird with a broken wing would be always more to you than a sound one!"’