We stood before her, plastered with the same mud (Fyne was a sight!), scratched by the same brambles, conscious of the same experience.

Yes.
Before her.

And she looked at us with folded arms, with an extraordinary fulness of assumed responsibility.

I addressed her.
"You don't believe in an accident, Mrs.Fyne, do you ?" She shook her head in curt negation while, caked in mud and inexpressibly serious-faced, Fyne seemed to be backing her up with all the weight of his solemn presence.

Nothing more absurd could be conceived.