Ella was dressed all in white; she had flung aside her hat, and the quiet breeze played in her fair hair, and stirred gently a stray curl that had escaped across her broad low brow.

The picture was one of gentleness and peace and an innocence that thought no wrong, and yet with his own eyes he had seen her not an hour ago fleeing with hurried steps and fearful looks from the spot where lay a murdered man.

Somewhat unsteadily, for he felt so little master of himself, it was as though he had no longer even control of his own limbs, Dunn stumbled forward, and Ella looked up and saw him, and saw also that he was looking at her very strangely.

She rose and came towards him, her needlework still in her hands.

“What is the matter?” she said in a voice of some concern.  “Are you ill?”

“No,” he answered.  “No.  I’ve been looking for Mr. Clive.”

“Have you?” she said, a little surprised apparently, but in no way flustered or disturbed.  “Did you find him?”

Dunn did not answer, for indeed he could not, and she said again: 

“Did you find him?”

Still he made no answer, for it seemed to him those four words were the most awful that any one had ever uttered since the beginning of the world.

“What is the matter?” she said again.  “Is anything the matter?”

“Oh, no, no,” he said, and he gave himself a little shake like a man wakening from deep sleep and trying to remember where he was.

“Well, then,” she said.

“I found Mr. Clive,” he said hardly and abruptly.  And he repeated again:  “Yes, I found him.”

They remained standing close together and facing each other, and he saw her as through a veil of red, and it was as though a red mist enveloped her, and where her shadow lay the earth was red, he thought, and where she put her foot it seemed to him red tracks remained, and never before had he understood how utterly he loved her and must love her, now and for evermore.

But he uttered no sound and made no movement, only stood very still, thinking to himself how dreadful it was that he loved her so greatly.

She was not paying him, any attention now.  A rose bush was near by, and she picked one of the flowers, and arranged it carefully at her waist.

She said, still looking at him: 

“Do you know—­I wish you would shave yourself?”

“Why?” he mumbled.

“I should like to see you,” she answered.  “I think I have a curiosity to see you.”

“I should think you could do that well enough,” he said in the same low, mumbled tones.

“No,” she answered.  “I can only see some very untidy hair and a pair of eyes—­not very nice eyes, rather frightening eyes.  I should like to see the rest of your face some day so as to know what it’s like.”

“Perhaps you shall—­some day,” he said.

“Is that a threat?” she asked.  “It sounded like one.”