A species of deep, lethargic numbness to everything except the immediate suggestions of his voice and touch seemed to have taken possession of her.

His arm round her, her cream-coloured cloak hanging loose, her cheeks pale, she let herself be led across the intervening tract of grass to the open door of the little shed.

Before they reached it, however, she turned her face round and glanced shyly at him. “You know I’m quite stupid and ignorant,” she said. “I know nothing about anything.”

Wolf did not pause to enquire whether this hurried confession referred to what might be named “the ritual of love” or just simply to her lack of book-learning. His senses were by this time in such a whirl of excitement that the girl’s clear-toned voice sounded like the vague humming of a seashell in his ears.

“Gerda?” he murmured huskily, with a faint, a very faint interrogation in his tone.