Let me help you down.'
He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the
stones. They walked on together to a tiny cascade about a foot
wide and high, and sat down beside it on the flags that for nine
months in the year were submerged beneath a gushing bourne. From
their feet trickled the attenuated thread of water which alone
remained to tell the intent and reason of this leaf-covered aisle,
and journeyed on in a zigzag line till lost in the shade.
Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating all this, looked
critically at Elfride.
'Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust itself and get
thin as the years go on from eighteen to eight-and-twenty?' he
asked at length.
'Oh no!' she said quickly, with a visible disinclination to
harbour such a thought, which came upon her with an unpleasantness
whose force it would be difficult for men to understand. She
added afterwards, with smouldering uneasiness, 'Do you really
think that a great abundance of hair is more likely to get thin
than a moderate quantity?'
'Yes, I really do. I believe--am almost sure, in fact--that if
statistics could be obtained on the subject, you would find the
persons with thin hair were those who had a superabundance
originally, and that those who start with a moderate quantity
retain it without much loss.'
Elfride's troubles sat upon her face as well as in her heart.
Perhaps to a woman it is almost as dreadful to think of losing her
beauty as of losing her reputation.
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