It was an entirely self-possessed Clare that issued from the shack after breakfast, yet there was something inaccessible about her. Though she was anxious to be friends with Stonor and Mary, she was cut off from them. They had to begin all over again with her. There was something piteous in the sight of the little figure so alone even among her friends; but she was bearing it pluckily.
She looked around her eagerly. The river was very lovely, with the sun drinking up the light mist from its surface.
“What river is this?” she asked.
Stonor told her.
“It is not altogether strange to me,” she said. “I feel as if I might have known it in a previous existence. There is a fall below, isn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“How do you suppose I knew that?”
He shrugged, smiling.
“And the—the catastrophe happened down there,” she said diffidently. He nodded.
“I feel it like a numb place inside me. But I don’t want to go down there. I feel differently from yesterday. Some day soon, of course, I must turn back the dreadful pages, but not quite yet. I want a little sunshine and laziness and sleep first; a little vacation from trouble.”