"Shall I go with you homeward?"
She shook her head.
"But the people who struck you?—they may attack you again?"
She laughed a little; low in her throat.
"I showed them a knife!—they are timid as hares."
"You are always by yourself?"
"Always."
She drew herself with a rapid movement from him and sprang into her boat where it rocked amidst the rushes against the steps; in another instant she had thrust it from its entanglement in the reeds, and pulled with swift, steady strokes down the stream into the falling shadows of the night.
"You will come back?" he called to her, as the first stroke parted the water.
"Yes," she answered him; and the boat shot forward into the shadow.