s the village,
where in the long straight Roman street he soon found the lighted hall.
The performance was not yet over; and by going round to the side of the
building and standing on a mound he could see the interior as far down
as the platform level. Avice's turn, or second turn, came on almost
immediately. Her pretty embarrassment on facing the audience rather won
him away from his doubts. She was, in truth, what is called a 'nice'
girl; attractive, certainly, but above all things nice--one of the class
with whom the risks of matrimony approximate most nearly to zero. Her
intelligent eyes, her broad forehead, her thoughtful carriage, ensured
one thing, that of all the girls he had known he had never met one with
more charming and solid qualities than Avice Caro's. This was not a mere
conjecture--he had known her long and thoroughly; her every mood and
temper.

A heavy wagon passing without drowned her small soft voice for him; but
the audience were pleased, and she blushed at their applause. He now
took his station at the door, and when the people had done pouring out
he found her within awaiting him.

They climbed homeward slowly by the Old Road, Pierston dragging himself
up the steep by the wayside hand-rail and pulling Avice after him upon
his arm. At the top they turned and stood still. To the left of them the
sky was streaked like a fan with the lighthouse rays, and under their
front, at periods of a quarter of a minute, there arose a deep, hollow
stroke like the single beat of a drum, the intervals being filled with a
long-drawn rattling, as of bones between huge canine jaws. It came from
the vast concave of Deadman's Bay, rising and falling against the pebble
dyke.

The evening and night winds here were, to Pierston's mind, charged with
a something that did not burden them elsewhere. They brought it up from
that sinister Bay to the west, whose movement she and he were hearing
now. It was a presence--an imaginary shape or essence from the human
multitude lying below: those who had gone down in vessels of war, East
Indiamen, barges, brigs, and ships of the Armada--select people, common,
and debased, whose interests and hopes had been as wide asunder as
the poles, but who had rolled each other to oneness on that restless
sea-bed. There could almost be felt the brush of their huge composite
ghost as it ran a shapeless figure over the isle, shrieking for some
good god who would disunite it again.

The twain wa