For a moment Julia’s eyes showed her surprise; an apology was not what she expected, and, to tell the truth, it did not altogether please her.  She knew that she and her father had no right to it while the money was unpaid.

“Please do not apologise,” she said; “there is no need, I quite understand.”

“I was labouring under a false impression,” Rawson-Clew explained.

She nodded.  “I know,” she said, “but it is cleared up now; no one who spoke with my father could possibly imagine he lived by his wits.”

Which ambiguous remark may have been meant to apply to the Captain’s mental outfit more than his moral one.  When Rawson-Clew knew Julia better he came to the conclusion it probably did, at the time he thought it wise not to answer it.

“Here is your basket,” he said; “I think it is clean now.”

She made a movement to take it, but her arm was numb and powerless from the blow she had received; it was the right shoulder which had been struck, and that hand was clearly useless for the time being; with a wince of pain, she stretched out the left.

But he drew the basket back.  “You are hurt,” he said.

“No, I’m not, nothing to speak of; it only hurts me when I move that arm; I will carry the basket with the other hand.”

“How far have you to go?”

She told him to the village and back.

“You had better go straight home at once,” he said.

“I can’t do that,” she answered.  She did not explain that she did not want to, the pain in her shoulder not being bad enough to make her want to give up this first hour of freedom.  “My shoulder does not hurt if I do not move it,” she said; “I can carry the basket with the other hand.”

“Perhaps you will allow me to carry it for you?” he suggested; “I am going the same way.”

“No, thank you,” she returned.  “Thanks very much for the offer, but there isn’t any need; I can manage quite well.  I expect you will want to go faster than I do.”  She spoke decidedly, and turned about quickly; as she did so, she caught sight of the bottle of peach-brandy in the grass.

“Oh, there’s the brandy,” she exclaimed; “I mustn’t go without that.”

He fetched the fortunately unbroken bottle and put it in the basket, but he did not give it to her.

“I will carry this,” he said; “if our pace does not agree, if you would prefer to walk more slowly, I will wait for you at the beginning of the village.”

Julia rose to her feet, there was no choice left to her but to acquiesce; from her heart she wished he would leave the basket and go alone; she wished even that he would be rude to her, she felt that then he would have been nearer her level and her father’s.  She resented alike his presence and his courtesy, and she could not show either feeling, only accept what he offered and walk by his side, just as if no money was owed, and no letter, condescendingly cancelling