lvia began to hasten home,
thinking, and remembering--at the stile that led into the road she
was brought short up.

Some one stood in the lane just on the other side of the gap; his
back was to the morning sun; all she saw at first was the uniform of
a naval officer, so well known in Monkshaven in those days.

Sylvia went hurrying past him, not looking again, although her
clothes almost brushed his, as he stood there still. She had not
gone a yard--no, not half a yard--when her heart leaped up and fell
again dead within her, as if she had been shot.

'Sylvia!' he said, in a voice tremulous with joy and passionate
love. 'Sylvia!'

She looked round; he had turned a little, so that the light fell
straight on his face. It was bronzed, and the lines were
strengthened; but it was the same face she had last seen in
Haytersbank Gully three long years ago, and had never thought to see
in life again.

He was close to her and held out his fond arms; she went fluttering
towards their embrace, as if drawn by the old fascination; but when
she felt them close round her, she started away, and cried out with
a great pitiful shriek, and put her hands up to her forehead as if
trying to clear away some bewildering mist.

Then she looked at him once more, a terrible story in her eyes, if
he could but have read it.

Twice she opened her stiff lips to speak, and twice the words were
overwhelmed by the surges of her misery, which bore them back into
the depths of her heart.

He thought that he had come upon her too suddenly, and he attempted
to soothe her with soft murmurs of love, and to woo her to his
outstretched hungry arms once more. But when she saw this motion of
his, she made a gesture as though pushing him away; and with an
inarticulate moan of agony she put her hands to her head once more,
and turning away began to run blindly towards the town for
protection.

For a minute or so he was stunned with surprise at her behaviour;
and then he thought it accounted for by the shock of his accost, and
that she needed time to understand the unexpected joy. So he
followed her swiftly, ever keeping her in view, but not trying to
overtake her too speedily.

'I have frightened my poor love,' he kept thinking. And by this
thought he tried to repress his impatience and check the speed he
longed to use; yet he was always so near behind that her quickened
sense heard his well-known footsteps following, and a mad notion
flashed across