And this is what I saw:--
First, a white thing lying on the ground, and it was the widow's cap,
and then Mrs. Wood herself, with a gaunt lanky-looking man, such as Mary
Anne had described. Her head came nearly to his shoulder, as I was well
able to judge, for he was holding it in his hands and had laid his own
upon it, as if it were a natural resting-place. And his hair coming
against the darker part of hers, I could see that his was grey all over.
Up to this point I had been too much stupefied to move, and I had just
become conscious that I ought to go, when the white cap lying in the
moonlight seemed to catch his eye as it had caught mine; and he set his
heel on it with a vehemence that made me anxious to be off. I could not
resist one look back as I left the garden, if only to make sure that I
had not been dreaming. No, they were there still, and he was lifting the
coil of her hair, which I suppose had come down when the cap was pulled
off, and it took the full stretch of his arm to do so, before it fell
heavily from his fingers.
When I presented myself to my mother with the bunch of flowers still in
my hand, she said, "Did my Jack get these for Mother?"
I shook my head.
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