You understand I am piecing here bits of disconnected statements. Next
day Flora saw him leaning over the field-gate. When she told me this, I
didn't of course ask her how it was she was there. Probably she could
not have told me how it was she was there. The difficulty here is to
keep steadily in view the then conditions of her existence, a combination
of dreariness and horror.
That hermit-like but not exactly misanthropic sailor was leaning over the
gate moodily. When he saw the white-faced restless Flora drifting like a
lost thing along the road he put his pipe in his pocket and called out
"Good morning, Miss Smith" in a tone of amazing happiness. She, with one
foot in life and the other in a nightmare, was at the same time inert and
unstable, and very much at the mercy of sudden impulses. She swerved,
came distractedly right up to the gate and looking straight into his
eyes: "I am not Miss Smith. That's not my name. Don't call me by it."
She was shaking as if in a passion. His eyes expressed nothing; he only
unlatched the gate in silence, grasped her arm and drew her in. Then
closing it with a kick-"Not your name? That's all one to me.
Your name's the least thing about
you I care for." He was leading her firmly away from the gate though she
resisted slightly. There was a sort of joy in his eyes which frightened
her. "You are not a princess in disguise," he said with an unexpected
laugh she found blood-curdling. "And that's all I care for. You had
better understand that I am not blind and not a fool. And then it's
plain for even a fool to see that things have been going hard with you.
You are on a lee shore and eating your heart out with worry."
What seemed most awful to her was the elated light in his eyes, the
rapacious smile that would come and go on his lips as if he were gloating
over her misery. But her misery was his opportunity and he rejoiced
while the tenderest pity seemed to flood his whole being. He pointed out
to her that she knew who he was. He was Mrs. Fyne's brother. And, well,
if his sister was the best friend she had in the world, then, by Jove, it
was about time somebody came along to look after her a little.
Flora had tried more than once to free herself, but he tightened his
grasp of her arm each time and even shook it a little without ceasing to
speak. The nearness of his face intimidated her. He seemed striving to
look her through. It was obvious the world had been using her ill. And
even as he spoke with indignation the very marks and stamp of this ill-
usage of which he was so certain seemed to add to the inexplicable
attraction he felt for her person. It was not pity alone, I take it. It
was something more spontaneous, perverse and exciting. It gave him the
feeling that if only he could get hold of her, no woman would belong to
him so completely as this woman.