She drew her fingers across its face to feel the marks.
"Two more!" she said.
She leant against the stone as a means of rest for a
short interval, then bestirred herself, and again pursued
her way. For a slight distance she bore up bravely,
afterwards flagging as before. This was beside a lone
copsewood, wherein heaps of white chips strewn upon
the leafy ground showed that woodmen had been
faggoting and making hurdles during the day. Now
there was not a rustle, not a breeze, not the faintest
clash of twigs to keep her company. The woman
looked over the gate, opened it, and went in. Close
to the entrance stood a row of faggots, bound and un-
bound, together with stakes of all sizes.
For a few seconds the wayfarer stood with that tense
stillness which signifies itself to be not the end but
merely the suspension, of a previous motion. Her
attitude was that of a person who listens, either to the
external world of sound, or to the imagined discourse of
thought. A close criticism might have detected signs
proving that she was intent on the latter alternative.
Moreover, as was shown by what followed, she was
oddly exercising the faculty of invention upon the spe-
ciality of the clever Jacquet Droz, the designer of auto-
matic substitutes for human limbs.
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