“Poll-Poll-Poll,” he repeated. And there came over him a deep wonder about the origin of this laborious piece of human toil. Were they Celts or Romans who actually, with their blunt primitive spades, had changed the face of this hill? Was this silent beautiful girl beside him the descendant of some Ionian soldier who had come in the train of the legionaries?

Dallying with these thoughts⁠—which probably would never have come into his head at all, if a certain childishness in the girl hadn’t, in a very subtle manner, lessened the bite of his lust⁠—Wolf was slower than she in reaching the top of the ridge. When he did reach the top, and looked down into the rounded hollow below, he was astonished to see no sign of his companion.

“Good Lord!” he thought, “has she gone round to the right or to the left?”

He ran down into the bottom of the little artificial valley and stood hesitating.

How like a child, to play him a trick of this kind!