anion, made short and
ungracious answers.

"What a disagreeable thing a fair is," said she, at last; "I no longer
wonder at my father saying it was not a suitable place for me--how I
wish I were at home!"

But many weary hours of noise and pleasureless excitement had to be worn
away, ere the party with whom Elizabeth came to Dunwich would agree to
return. Elizabeth's remonstrances, entreaties, and anger were alike
unheeded by the companions of her voyage. She had haughtily rejected
every overture on the part of Arthur toward a reconciliation, and
declined to receive fairings or attentions of any kind from him, to
manifest her indignant sense of the slight she had experienced from him
in the early part of the day; and Arthur had retorted by paying his
court very ostentatiously to Joan Bates. Elizabeth, neglected and alone,
strayed from her party, and sought a solitary nook among the ivied ruins
of a monastic pile, whose rifted arches overhung the verge of the lofty
cliff, where she indulged in floods of tears, casting from time to time
her wistful glances toward Southwold, whose verdant cliffs looked so
calm and peaceful in the mellow lights of a glowing sunset; but it was
not till those cliffs were silvered by the rising moon that the tide
served for the return of the boats. At length, Elizabeth heard her name
vociferated by many individuals of her party, and felt sorely mortified
at the publicity thus given to the fact of her being at a forbidden
place. Ashamed to raise her voice in reply, yet painfully anxious to
return to her deserted home, she hastened from her retreat among the
ruins, and ran eagerly toward the steep narrow path that led to the
beach. On the way she encountered Arthur Blackbourne, evidently the
worse for his revels.

"Where have you been wandering about by yourself?" cried he, seizing her
roughly by the arm.

"You have used me very ill to-day, Arthur," said she, bursting into
tears.

"You are jealous and out of temper," was the reply.

"Where is my brother Edward?" sobbed Elizabeth, for she could not trust
her voice with a rejoinder to this taunt.

"In the boat, and if you do not make haste, we shall lose the tide."

"I have suffered enough for my disobedience to my father as it is," said
Elizabeth; "and oh, what will he say to me on my return from this
disgraceful expedition!"

"There is no time to think of that now," rejoined Arthur, as they
proceeded to the boat in mutual displeasure