She sighed “No.”

“Who are you?”

Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the

bench beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his

arm. A strange thrill struck him when she did so, and visibly

passed over his frame; he laid the knife down softly, as he sat

staring at her.

Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been

hurriedly pushed aside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing

his hand by little and little, he took it up and looked at it. In the

midst of the action he went astray, and, with another deep sigh,

fell to work at his shoemaking.

But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his

shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as if to

be sure that it was really there, he laid down his work, put his

hand to his neck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap of

folded rag attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee,

and it contained a very little quantity of hair: not more than one or

two long golden hairs, which he had, in some old day, wound off

upon his finger.

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He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. “It

is the same. How can it be! When was it! How was it!”

As the concentrating expression returned to his forehead, he

seemed to become conscious that it was in he