She made game of the work of feeding them, coquettishly pretending to throw the boon where she did not throw it, laughing the while and talking to the birds, as if she and they led the same life and talked the same language.

Caius could not hear what she said, but he felt assured that the birds could understand.
For some few minutes Caius looked at this scene; he did not know how long he looked; his heart within him was face to face with a pain that was quite new in his life, and was so great that he could not at first understand it, but only felt that in comparison all smaller issues of life faded and became as nothing.
Beyond the youthful figure of the corn-giver Caius saw another woman.

It was the wife of O'Shea, and in a moment her steadfast, quiet face looked up into his, and he knew that she saw him and did not tell of his presence; but, as her eyes looked long and mutely into his, it seemed to him that this silent woman understood something of the pain he felt.
Then, very quietly, he turned his horse and rode back by the path that he had come.
The woman he had seen was the wife of the sea-captain Le Maitre.

He said it to himself as if to be assured that the self within him had not in some way died, but could still speak and understand.

He knew that he had seen the wife of this man, because the old cloak and hood, which he knew so well, had only been cast off, and were still hanging to the skirts below the girlish waist, and the white cap, too, had been thrown aside upon the snow--he had seen it.