Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last
fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain,
let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels
soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness
horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother
I have left!"
Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of
humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the
terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her
reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless
still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of
her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and
then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain
confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear
girl--no hurry."
She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same
angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which
he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted
before him for the first time.
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