Let me then take the case of the man who has trained his eyes, or
rather whose vision has unconsciously trained itself, to look at every
face he meets, to find in most cases something, however little, of the
person's inner life. Such a man could hardly walk the length of the
Strand and Fleet-street or of Oxford-street without being startled at
the sight of a face which haunts him with its tragedy, its mystery, the
strange things it has half revealed. But it does not haunt him long;
another arresting face follows, and then another, and the impressions
all fade and vanish from the memory in a little while. But from time to
time, at long intervals, once perhaps in a lustrum, he will encounter a
face that will not cease to haunt him, whose vivid impression will not
fade for years. It was a face and eyes of that kind which I met in the
samphire gatherer on that cold evening; but the mystery of it is a
mystery still.




XI

A SURREY VILLAGE


Through the scattered village of Churt, in its deepest part, runs a
clear stream, broad in places, where it spreads over the road-way and
is so shallow that the big carthorses are scarce wetted above their
fetlocks in crossing; in other parts narrow enough for a man to jump
over, yet deep enough for the trout to hide in. And which is the
prettiest one finds it hard to say--the wide splashy places where the
cattle come to drink, and the real cow and the illusory inverted cow