"My father grows worse every day," Harry went on, as though pursuing his own train of thought. "He can't last much longer, and when he goes I shall miss him terribly. We have understood each other during this fortnight as we never did in all those early years. Sometimes I funk it utterly—following him with all of them against me."
"Why, no," she cried. "It's splendid. You are in power. They can do nothing, and Robin will come round when he sees how you face it out. Why, I expect that he's coming already. I've faced things out here all these years, and you dare to say that you can't stand a few months of it."
"What have you faced?" he asked. "Tell me exactly. I want to know all about you; you've never told me very much, and it's only fair that I should know."
"Yes," she said gravely, "it is—well, you shall!—at least a part of it. A woman always keeps a little back," she said, looking at him with a smile. "As soon as she ceases to be a puzzle she ceases to interest."
She turned and watched the sea. Then, after a moment's pause, she said:
"What do you want to know? I can only give you bits of things—when, for instance, I ran away from my nurse, aged five, was picked up by an applewoman with a green umbrella who introduced me to three old ladies with black pipes and moustaches—I was found in a coal cellar. Then we lived in Bloomsbury—a little house looking out on to a little green park—all in miniature it seems on looking back. I don't think that I was a very good child, but they didn't look after me very much. Mother was always out, and father in business. Fancy," she said, laughing, "father in business! We were happy then, I think, all of us. Then came the terrible time when father ran away."
"Ah, yes," Harry said, "he told me."
"Poor mother! it was quite dreadful; I was only eight then, and I didn't understand. But she sat up all night waiting for him. She was persuaded that he was killed, and she was very ill. You see he had never left any word as to where he was. And then he suddenly turned up again, and ate an enormous breakfast, as though nothing had happened. I don't think he realised a bit that she had worried.
"It was so like him, the naked selfishness of it and the utter unresponsibility, as of a child.
"Then I went to school—in Bloomsbury somewhere. It was a Miss Pinker, and she was interested in me. Poor thing, her school failed afterwards. I don't know quite why, but she never could manage, and I don't think parents ever paid her. I had great ideas of myself then; I thought that I would be great, an actress or a novelist, but I got rid of all that soon enough. I was happy; we had friends, and luxuries were rare enough to make them valuable. Then—we came down here—this sea, this town, this moor—Oh! how I hate them!"