carefully over every event of the day. She saw him start up among the
bushes and stand before her, strong and active, looking restlessly
round. She felt over again the bewilderment and the fright, and her
tears of shame. She saw him against the sun, on the height; she heard
the shot, and was again on her knees before him, helping him with the
skinning of the bear. She heard once more every word that he said, in
that low voice that sounded so friendly, and that touched her heart as
she thought of it; she listened to it as he sat beside the hearth
while she was cooking, and then at table with her. She felt that she
had no longer dared to look into his face, so that at last she had
made him feel awkward too; for he had grown silent. Then she heard him
speak once again, as he took her hand; and she felt his clasp--felt it
still, through her whole body. She saw him go away over the
heather--away, away!

Would he ever come back? Impossible, after the way she had behaved.
How strong, and brave, and self-reliant was everything she had seen of
him, and how stupid and miserable all that he had seen of her, from
her first scream of fright when the dog touched her, to her blush of
shame and her tears; from the clumsy help she gave him, to her
slowness in preparing the food. And to think that when he looked at
her she was not able to speak; not even to say No, when he asked her
if she sat under the hill every day--for she didn't sit there every
day! Might not her silence then have seemed like an invitation to him
to come and see? Might not her whole miserable helplessness have been
misunderstood in the same way? What shame she felt now! She was hot
all over with it, and she buried her burning face deeper and deeper in
the grass. Then she called up the whole picture once more; all his
excellences and her shortcomings; and again the shame of it all
overwhelmed her.