He turned back in the road, his decayed voice whipped by the
stimulus of her into a higher note.

"Suppose the village coachman should think her as lovely as we do
- what!"

He laughed and turned heavily up the road a hundred yards or so
to his cottage set in the pine wood. I stood in the road
watching the wheels of the absurd village vehicle, the yellow
cut-under, disappear. The old Major called back to me; his voice
seemed detached, eerie with the thin laugh in it.

"I thought him a particularly villainous-looking creature!"

It was an absurd remark. The man was one of the natives of the
island, and besides, the innkeeper was a person of sound sense;
he would know precisely about his driver.

I should not have gone on this adventure but for a further
incident.

When I entered the house my sister was going up the stair, the
butler was beyond in the drawing-room, and there was no other
servant visible. She was on the first step and the elevation
gave precisely the height that my sister ought to have received
in the accident of birth. She would have been wonderful with
those four inches added - lacking beauty, she had every other
grace!

She spoke to me as I approached.