“Still the whole basket is awry.”
“It is so.”
“It is a pity.”
“It is a pity. But it cannot be helped. It will be so till I find nothing and pluck nothing save straight fair-growing withies.”
“Where do you pick them?”
“From the floating island in the lake.”
“I don’t know it. Where is the lake?”
“There,” she answered. She waved her hand towards the waste ground with its slimy clay and broken bricks.
“There! Where?”
“There—there—there—my child!” she answered, smiling gravely, and waving her hand again at the immediate foreground. Campion saw she was subject to hallucinations. She was probably much alone, and certainly very poor. He felt impelled to do what was obviously the very last thing he should have done. He drew out the silk scarf, and his loose silver.