"How he has changed, oh! how he has changed," she thought to herself. The raw boy had become a man, and as she knew at once by her woman's instinct, a man with a great deal in him. Isobel was a sensible member of her sex; one, too, who had seen something of the world by now, and she did not expect or wish for a hero or a saint built upon the mid-Victorian pattern, as portrayed in the books of the lady novelists of that period. She wanted a man to be a man, by preference with the faults pertaining to the male nature, since she had observed that those who lacked these, possessed others, which to her robust womanhood seemed far worse, such as meanness and avarice and backbiting, and all the other qualities of the Pharisee.
Well, in Godfrey, whether she were right or wrong, with that swift glance of hers, she seemed to recognise a man as she wished a man to be. If that standard of hers meant that very possibly he had admired other women, the lady whom he had pulled up a precipice, for instance, she did not mind particularly, so long as he admired her, Isobel, most of all. That was her one sine qua non, that he should admire her most of all, or rather be fondest of her in his innermost self.
What was she thinking about? What was there to show that he cared one brass farthing about her? Nothing at all. And yet, why was he here where she had parted from him so long ago? Surely not to stare at the grave of a dead woman with whom he could have had nothing to do, since she left the world some five centuries before. And another question. What had brought her here, she who hated churches and all the mummery that they signified?
Would he never wake up? Would he never realise her presence? Oh! then he could care nothing about her. Probably he was thinking of the girl he had pulled up a cliff in the Alps. But why did he come to this place to think of her?
Isobel stood quite still there and waited in the shadow of a Georgian tomb, till presently Godfrey did seem to grow aware that he was no longer alone. Something or somebody had impinged upon his intelligence. He began to look about him, though always in the wrong direction. Then, convinced that he was the victim of fancy, he spoke aloud as he had a bad habit of doing when by himself.
"It's very curious," he said, "but I could have sworn that Isobel was here, as near me as when we parted. I suppose that is what comes of thinking so much about her. Or do people leave something of themselves behind in places where they have experienced emotion? If so, churches ought to be very full of ghosts. I dare say that they are, only then no one could know it except those who had shared the emotion, and therefore they remain intangible. Still, I could have sworn that Isobel was here. Indeed, I seem to feel her now, and I hope that the dream will go on."