The speaker was a shaggy old fellow in an Inverness cape and an ancient wide-awake, carrying a portfolio and a camp-stool. He had stopped in his walk outside the open window, and his disappointed look searched the inn parlour for a person who was not there.
"Oh, Mr. McCready, I'm so sorry!—but Miss Pitstone is out, and I don't know when she will be back."
The artist undid his portfolio, and laid a half-finished sketch—a sketch of Helena's—on the window-sill.
"Will you kindly give her this? I have corrected it—made some notes on the side. Do you think Miss Helena will be likely to be sketching to-morrow?"
"I'm afraid I can't promise for her. She seems to like walking better than anything else just now."
"Yes, she's a splendid walker," said the old man, with a sigh. "I envy her strength. Well, if she wants me, she knows where to find me—just beyond that bend there." He pointed to the river.
"I'll tell her—and I'll give her the sketch. Good-bye."
She watched him heavily cross the foot-bridge to the other side of the river. Her quick pity went with him, for she herself knew well what it meant to be solitary and neglected. He seldom sold a picture, and nobody knew what he lived on. The few lessons he had given Helena had been as a golden gleam in a very grey day. But alack, Helena had soon tired of her lessons, as she had tired of the mile of coveted trout-fishing that Mr. Evans of the farm beyond the oak-wood had pressed upon her—or of the books the young Welsh-speaking curate of the little mountain church near by was so eager to lend her. Through and behind a much gentler manner, the girl's familiar self was to be felt—by Lucy at least—as clearly as before. She was neither to be held nor bound. Attempt to lay any fetter upon her—of hours, or habit—and she was gone; into the heart of the mountains where no one could follow her. Lucy would often compare with it the eager docility of those last weeks at Beechmark.
* * * * *
Helena's walk had taken her through the dripping oak-wood and over the crest of the hill to a ravine beyond, where the river, swollen now by the abundant rains which had made an end of weeks of drought, ran, noisily full, between two steep banks of mossy crag. From the crag, oaks hung over the water, at fantastic angles, holding on, as it seemed, by one foot and springing from the rock itself; while delicate rock plants, and fern fringed every ledge down to the water. A seat on the twisted roots of an overhanging oak, from which, to either side, a little green path, as though marked for pacing, ran along the stream, was one of her favourite haunts. From up-stream a mountain peak now kerchiefed in wisps of sunlit cloud peered in upon her. Above it, a lake of purest blue from which the wind, which had brought them, was now chasing the clouds; and everywhere the glory of the returning sun, striking the oaks to gold, and flinging a chequer of light on the green floor of the wood.