"Why not inland, Eleanor?" he suggested. "Let us go to Turton Woods."
She seemed scarcely to have heard him. Already she was well on her way shoreward.
He caught her up in a few strides. The tide had gone down, and they walked dry-footed along the road. Above their heads the larks were singing, and in their faces the freshening sea wind blew.
Her head was thrown back, her lips were parted. She drank in the breeze as though it were wine.
"This is the wind which Ulric and his men always loved," she murmured. "A wind from the north to the shore. Can't you feel the sting of the Iceland snows?"
"Not I?" he answered, laughing. "To me it is soft and warm enough. But then, you know, I have no imagination."
"Powers," she said suddenly, "I want to ask you a question. Is there any fear of my going mad?"
He started violently.
"Certainly not!" he answered. "Why do you ask me such a question?"
"I know that I am not like other girls," she said wistfully. "I cannot remember my father, or my life in India, or the voyage. When I try to think about these things my head plays me such strange tricks. I cannot remember where I was, or what I was doing a year ago—but——"