His hands clinched at his sides. His breath came in quick rasping gasps.
"I'll get your basket," he muttered.
He rushed into his one room shanty and caught up the basket nearest to him and went out again to her.
She took the basket from him in silence. She slipped the handle of it on to her arm. Her hands rubbed against each other; the fingers of them twining and intertwining.
"I'll be going now, Mister."
"Yes."
"I've got to be getting home before Pa and Will go out to the nets."
"Good-by, little girl."
"Good-by, Mister; and—thanks."
He stood there and watched her go from the back of his stone built shanty down the narrow winding path that lay along the sun bleached chalk cliffs. She went quickly and lightly down the steep incline, her small slender figure in its blue print dress, with the sun bringing out the burnished glints in her golden hair. His eyes strained after her. In a short while he lost her from sight.