I still wear the ring you gaveďż˝ . And left a rose for you, Let these things count a little in my favour. For you can scarcely guess how much of courage it had cost me.” She knelt there, her bared arms hanging by her side, the sun bright on her curls, staring at me out of those strange, grey eyes.

“Since I have been alone,” she said in a low voice, “no man — unless by a miracle it be you — has offered me a service or a kindness except that he awaited his reward. Soon or late their various songs became the same familiar air. It is the only song I’ve heard from men — with endless variations, truly, often and cunningly disguised — yet ever the same and sorry themeďż˝ . Men are what God made them; God has seemed to fashion me to their liking — I scarce know how