nature;
these sank into insignificance, contrasted to the whirl of baulked
passion which had passed over her life, to leave it utterly blasted,
to turn her indifference to hate.

Yes, that was the burden of his thoughts: she hated and dreaded him.
His love, his forbearance, his chivalrousness had been in vain. All he
had now to live upon was the memory of those few days when, under the
spell of oblivion the beloved child had smiled on him in the
unconscious love born of her helplessness and his care. But even this
most precious remembrance of the present was now, like that of the
past, to be obscured by its abrupt and terrible end.

Death had given birth to the first and last avowal of love in her who
had perished between his arms under the swirling waters of the
Vilaine--but it was Life itself, returning life and health of mind,
which had changed looks of trust and affection into the chilly stare
of dread in the eyes of her whom with all the strength of his hoarded
manhood he now loved alone. The past for all its sorrows had held
sweetness: the present, the future, nothing but torment. And now, even
the past, with its love and its sorrow was gone from him, merged in
the greater love and sorrow of the present. How long could he bear
it?--Useless clamour of the soul! He must bear it. Life must be
accepted.

Sir Adrian rose and, standing, paused a moment to let his sight,
wandering beyond the immense sands, seek repose for a moment in the
blue haze marking the horizon of the hills. The day was pure,
exquisite in its waning beauty; the breeze as light and soft as a
caress. In the great stillness of the bay the sisters sea and land
talked in gentle intermittent murmurs. Now and then the cries of
circling sea-fowl brought a note of uncanny joy into the harmony that
seemed like silence in its unity.

A beautiful harmonious world! But to him the very sense of the outer
peace gave a fresh emphasis to the discordance of his own life. He
brought his gaze from afar and slowly turned to resume his work. But
even as he turned a black speck upon the nearer arm of sea challenged
his fleeting attention. He stood and watched--and, as he watched, a
sensation, the most poignant and yet eerie he had ever known clutched
him by the heart.

A boat was approaching: a small row-boat in which the oars were plyed
by a woman. By the multi-coloured, glaring shawl (poor Jack's
appreciated gift) he knew her, but without attaching name or
per