She saw in a moment the way to do it, sooner than I could tell her; and
there was no time to lose.

'Now mind you never come again,' she whispered over her shoulder, as she
crept away with a childish twist hiding her white front from me; 'only I
shall come sometimes--oh, here they are, Madonna!'

Daring scarce to peep, I crept into the water, and lay down bodily
in it, with my head between two blocks of stone, and some flood-drift
combing over me. The dusk was deepening between the hills, and a white
mist lay on the river; but I, being in the channel of it, could see
every ripple, and twig, and rush, and glazing of twilight above it, as
bright as in a picture; so that to my ignorance there seemed no chance
at all but what the men must find me. For all this time they were
shouting and swearing, and keeping such a hullabaloo, that the rocks all
round the valley rang, and my heart quaked, so (what with this and
the cold) that the water began to gurgle round me, and to lap upon the
pebbles.

Neither in truth did I try to stop it, being now so desperate, between
the fear and the wretchedness; till I caught a glimpse of the little
maid, whose beauty and whose kindliness had made me yearn to be with
her. And then I knew that for her sake I was bound to be brave and hide
myself. She was lying beneath a rock, thirty or forty yards from me,
feigning to be fast asleep, with her dress spread beautifully, and her
hair drawn over her.

Presently one of the great rough men came round a corner upon her; and
there he stopped and gazed awhile at her fairness and her innocence.
Then he caught her up in his arms, and kissed her so that I heard him;