And when I had finished it and set the glass down and thanked
her, she turned in silence and went back to that inner room
from which she first came. And hot and tired as I had felt a
few moments before, and desirous of an interval of rest in the
cool shade, I was glad to be out in the burning sun once more,
for the sight of that young woman had chilled my blood and
made the heat out-of-doors seem grateful to me.
The sight of such a face in the midst of such surroundings had
produced a shock of surprise, for it was noble in shape, the
features all fine and the mouth most delicately chiselled, the
eyes dark and beautiful, and the hair of a raven blackness.
But it was a colourless face, and even the lips were pale.
Strongest of all was the expression, which had frozen there,
and was like the look of one on whom some unimaginable
disaster or some hateful disillusionment had come, not to
subdue nor soften, but to change all its sweet to sour, and
its natural warmth to icy cold.
Chapter Eighteen: Branscombe
Health and pleasure resorts and all parasitic towns in fact,
inland or on the sea, have no attractions for me and I was
more than satisfied with a day or two of Sidmouth. Then one
evening I heard for the first time of a place called
Branscomb--a village near the sea, over by Beer and Seaton,
near the mouth of the Axe, and the account my old host gave me
seemed so attractive that on the following day I set out to
find it.
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