He struck himself on the breast, and leaned forward to stare at me. I trembled a little before him, but contrived to shake my head. "I don't remember," I said. But I knew that some old memory was springing up in me; I knew that I had seen some such face as this, perhaps in a dream, a long, long while ago. Life and memory were stirring so slowly in me yet that I could remember nothing. I only knew that I existed, and that I stood trembling in the snow before this man, and that I was cold and dimly afraid. I knew no more than that.
"Well, I've waited outside your grave for you until you came to life again," he said, with another laugh. "I'm your friend, if you know what that means, and I want to help you. Take off your hat; I want to look at you."
That old habit of obedience was so strong in me still that I pulled off my hat, and stood there, grey-headed, before him in the winter sunlight. Whoever he was he seemed shocked for a moment beyond measure; fell back from me a pace or two with a dropping jaw.
"God!" he muttered; and then in an awe-struck voice I heard him say again: "Poor broken devil!"
I put on my hat again, and waited patiently to hear what more he would say; I felt instinctively that in all the great world in which I stood so forlorn and lonely this man might chance to be my friend. And I wanted friends then badly.
"What are you going to do, Avaline?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I don't know," I said, with a glance down the long road that sloped away to the distant town where the smoke was rising in the still morning air. "I'm afraid to think."
"Got any money?" he demanded; and I turned out my pockets, and counted into his hands all I had. I told him a little proudly that it was what I had earned behind the great gates that frowned upon us as we talked.
"All this in twenty years!" He laughed, and transferred the few coins of which I had been so proud to his own pocket. "I'm your friend, Avaline," he said. "Come with me, and I'll look after you."