ot stay in t' house to be choked up wi'
my tears, nor yet to have him coming about me either for scolding or
peace-making.'

So she put on her things and went out again; this time along the
High Street, and up the long flights of steps towards the parish
church, and there she stood and thought that here she had first met
Kinraid, at Darley's burying, and she tried to recall the very look
of all the sad, earnest faces round the open grave--the whole scene,
in fact; and let herself give way to the miserable regrets she had
so often tried to control. Then she walked on, crying bitterly,
almost unawares to herself; on through the high, bleak fields at the
summit of the cliffs; fields bounded by loose stone fences, and far
from all sight of the habitation of man. But, below, the sea rose
and raged; it was high water at the highest tide, and the wind blew
gustily from the land, vainly combating the great waves that came
invincibly up with a roar and an impotent furious dash against the
base of the cliffs below.

Sylvia heard the sound of the passionate rush and rebound of many
waters, like the shock of mighty guns, whenever the other sound of
the blustering gusty wind was lulled for an instant. She was more
quieted by this tempest of the elements than she would have been had
all nature seemed as still as she had imagined it to be while she
was yet in-doors and only saw a part of the serene sky.

She fixed on a certain point, in her own mind, which she would
reach, and then turn back again. It was where the outline of the
land curved inwards, dipping into a little bay. Here the field-path
she had hitherto followed descended somewhat abruptly to a cluster
of fishermen's cottages, hardly large enough to be called a village;
and then the narrow roadway wound up the rising ground till it again
reached the summit of the cliffs that stretched along the coast for
many and many a mile.

Sylvia said to herself that she would turn homewards when she came
within sight of this cove,--Headlington Cove, they called it. All
the way along she had met no one since she had left the town, but
just as she had got over the last stile, or ladder of
stepping-stones, into the field from which the path descended, she
came upon a number of people--quite a crowd, in fact; men moving
forward in a steady line, hauling at a rope, a chain, or something
of that kind; boys, children, and women holding babies in their
arms, as if all were fain to come ou