"Did you ever see anything so heart-rending?" said Majendie. "That anything could be so young!"
Anne shook her head, dumb with the fascination.
As they approached again, the little creature rolled on its waist, and crawled over the grass to her feet.
"The little lamb—" said she, and stooped, and lifted it.
It turned to her, cuddling. Through the thin muslin of her bodice she could feel the pressure of its tender palms.
Majendie stood close to her and tried gently to detach and possess himself of the delicate clinging fingers. But his eyes were upon Anne's eyes. They drew her; she looked up, her eyes flashed to the meeting-point; his widened in one long penetrating gaze.
A sudden pricking pain went through her, there where the pink and flaxen thing lay sun-warm and life-warm to her breast.
At first she did not heed it. She stood hushed, attentive to the prescience that woke in her; surrendered to the secret, with desire that veiled itself to meet its unveiled destiny.
Then the veil fell.
The eyes that looked at her grew tender, and before their tenderness the veil, the veil of her desire that had hidden him from her, fell.