Well, I saw her. I’ve forgotten her just as much as a man who’s dying of thirst has forgotten water-he’s forgotten what it tastes like, and he can’t get it, and he’s dying without it, and then some one shows it to him-shows him a pool with the sun on it and the water coming up in a clear spring. There was a pool like that at Linwood, and it always reminded me of Isobel. The trees stood round it so close that the water had the look of being extraordinarily deep. And first of all you’d think it was as still as glass, but if you watched, you’d see the spring of the water moving in it a long way down, and if you knew the right place, you could stand and see the sky in the water; and, once in a way when the sun was just right, you could look down, and down, and down. I used to think there was something hidden in the pool, and make up stories about it. And afterwards, when I met Isobel, I thought about the pool at once. I suppose at first it was her eyes-because they have the same look that very deep water has. And then I loved her so much that she reminded me of all the beautiful things I had ever seen. The Linwood pool is very beautiful.

I’ve got a long way from meeting Isobel. I came round the corner, and she was only about half a yard away. If there had been any earthly way of avoiding her, I’d have taken it-but there wasn’t any way, so I took my hat off. And she said “Car!” and stopped dead and said “Car!” again. And before I knew what I was doing we were shaking hands. I don’t see that I could have helped it-I couldn’t have cut her dead. And when I wanted to take my hand away, she held on to it, and she said, “Oh, Car!”

I don’t know what I said-I dare say I didn’t say anything-I didn’t want to say anything-I wanted to look at her. She had on a blue dress, and at first I thought she was pale- frightfully pale-and my heart gave a sort of jerk of pure funk because I was afraid she was ill. And then when she said “Oh, Car!” the color came into her face and she looked so beautiful that I could have gone down on my knees and kissed the ground she was walking on-I didn’t, of course; I stood like a stockfish and looked at her. And then she said, “Oh, Car, where have you been?” and I came to my senses and got my hand away.