ooked around her. Ostensibly
it was to survey the ruined house; but in reality to search, even then
under her lashes, the whole green expanse sloping up to the windmill for
some moving figure. She saw that which made her throat swell and her
ears to hear celestial music. But she would not allow herself to think,
of that at all events. She was all woman now; all-patient, and
all-submissive. She waited the man; and the man was coming!

For a few minutes she walked round the house as though looking at it
critically for some after-purpose. After the wreck Stephen had suggested
to Trinity House that there should be a lighthouse on the point; and
offered to bear the expense of building it. She was awaiting the answer
of the Brethren; and of course nothing would be done in clearing the
ground for any purpose till the answer had come. She felt now that if
that reply was negative, she would herself build there a pleasure-house
of her own.

Then she went to the edge of the cliff, and went down the zigzag by which
the man and horse had gone to their gallant task. At the edge of the
flat rock she sat and thought.

And through all her thoughts passed the rider who even now was thundering
over the green sward on his way to her. In her fancy at first, and later
in her ears, she could hear the sound of his sweeping gallop.

It was thus that a man should come to a woman!

She had no doubts now. Her quietude was a hymn of grateful praise!

The sound stopped. With all her ears she listened, her heart now
beginning to beat furiously. The sea before her, all lines and furrows
with the passing tide, was dark under the shadow of the cliff; and the
edge of the shadow was marked with the golden hue of sunset.

And then she saw suddenly a pillar of shadow beyond the line of the
cliff. It rested but a moment, moved swiftly along the edge, and then
was lost to her eyes.

But to another sense there was greater comfort: she heard the clatter of
rolling pebbles and the scramble of eager feet. Harold was hastening
down the zigzag.

Oh! the music of that sound! It woke all the finer instincts of the
woman. All the dross and thought of self passed away. Nature, sweet and
simple and true, reigned alone. Instinctively she rose and came towards
him. In the simple nobility of her self-surrender and her purpose, which
were at one with the grandeur of nature around her, to be negative was to
be false.

Since he had spoken with