g the rippling water-line,
was Stephen Bromley, busily gathering in his nets; besides him there
was no living creature visible. Ruth shaded her eyes, as if she
thought they might have deceived her; but no, there was no one there.
She went slowly down to her old place, crying sadly as she went.

"Oh! if I had not spoken so angrily to him--the last things I said
were so bitter--so reproachful!--and I shall never, never see him
again!"

She could not take in the general view and scope of their
conversation--the event was too near her for that; but her heart felt
sore at the echo of her last words, just and true as their severity
was. Her struggle, her constant flowing tears, which fell from very
weakness, made her experience a sensation of intense bodily fatigue;
and her soul had lost the power of throwing itself forward, or
contemplating anything beyond the dreary present, when the expanse of
grey, wild, bleak moors, stretching wide away below a sunless sky,
seemed only an outward sign of the waste world within her heart, for
which she could claim no sympathy;--for she could not even define
what its woes were; and if she could, no one would understand how the
present time was haunted by the terrible ghost of the former love.

"I am so weary! I am so weary!" she moaned aloud at last. "I wonder
if I might stop here, and just die away."

She shut her eyes, until through the closed lids came a ruddy blaze
of light. The clouds had parted away, and the sun was going down in a
crimson glory behind the distant purple hills. The whole western sky
was one flame of fire. Ruth forgot herself in looking at the gorgeous
sight. She sat up gazing, and, as she gazed, the tears dried on her
cheeks; and, somehow, all human care and sorrow were swallowed up in
the unconscious sense of God's infinity. The sunset calmed her more
than any words, however wise and tender, could have done. It even
seemed to give her strength and courage; she did not know how or why,
but so it was.

She rose, and went slowly towards home. Her limbs were very stiff,
and every now and then she had to choke down an unbidden sob. Her
pupils had been long returned from church, and had busied themselves
in preparing tea--an occupation which had probably made them feel the
time less long.

If they had ever seen a sleep-walker, they might have likened Ruth
to one for the next few days, so slow and measured did her movements
seem--so far away was her intelligence fr