“At any rate,” said Isabel, “whatever else this place may do, it can't alter our being together. You 've always got me, you know.”
But from this moment Isabel was afraid. Perhaps her nerves were strained, perhaps she saw a great deal more than there was to be seen; but she longed for the end of the term with a passionate eagerness, and she could not sleep at nights.
And then, curiously, on the very next morning Mr. Perrin came and spoke to her.
She always afterwards remembered him as she saw him that day. She was just turning out of the black gate to go down the hill to the village; there was a very pale blue sky; the ground was white with gray and purple shadows, and the houses were brown and sharply edged, as though cut out of paper, in the distance; the hills were a gray-white against the sky. He came towards her very slowly, and she saw that he wanted to speak to her, so she stopped and waited for him. When he came up to her—with his gown hanging loosely about him and his heavy, black mortar-board, with his thin, haggard cheeks, and staring eyes, with his straggly, unkept mustache—she had a moment of ungovernable fear. She could give no reason for it, but she knew that her impulse was to turn and run away, anywhere so that she might escape from him.
Then she controlled herself and turned and faced him, and smiled and held out her hand.
She could see him staring beyond her, over her shoulder, with eyes that didn't see her at all. She saw that his hand was shaking.
“How do you do, Mr. Perrin? I haven't seen you for quite a long time. Isn't this snow delightful? If it will only stay like this.”
Suddenly he came quite close to her, looking into her eyes; he grasped her hand and held it.
“I 've been wanting to say...” he said in an odd voice, and there he stopped and stood staring at her.
“Yes,” she said gently.