"
"Some of them are," she trembled.
"I must just have a look," he said, and put his hands on the top
of the wall.
"Come away!" she cried.
"Oh! It's all right!" he said again, soothingly. "The wall's as
firm as a rock." And he took a slight spring and looked over.
She shrieked loudly. She saw him at the distant bottom of the
shaft, mangled, drowning. The ground seemed to quake under her
feet. A horrible sickness seized her. And she shrieked again.
Never had she guessed that existence could be such pain.
He slid down from the wall, and turned to her. "No bottom to be
seen!" he said. Then, observing her transformed face, he came
close to her, with a superior masculine smile. "Silly little
thing!" he said coaxingly, endearingly, putting forth all his
power to charm.
He perceived at once that he had miscalculated the effects of his
action. Her alarm changed swiftly to angry offence. She drew back
with a haughty gesture, as if he had intended actually to touch
her. Did he suppose, because she chanced to be walking with him,
that he had the right to address her familiarly, to tease her, to
call her 'silly little thing' and to put his face against hers?
She resented his freedom with quick and passionate indignation.
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