seless. Well, I changed my lodgings for those I now have,
and simply began the life I now--the life I have been leading. Work was
more impossible for me than ever, and I had to feed and clothe myself."

"How long ago was that?" asked Waymark, without looking up.

"Four months."

Ida rose from the beach. The tide had gone down some distance; there
were stretches of smooth sand, already dry in the sunshine.

"Let us walk back on the sands," she said, pointing.

"You are going home?"

"Yes, I want to rest a little. I will meet you again about eight
o'clock, if you like."

Waymark accompanied her as far as the door, then strolled on to his own
lodgings, which were near at hand. It was only the second day that they
had been in Hastings, yet it seemed to him as if he had been walking
about on the seashore with Ida for weeks. For all that, he felt that he
was not as near to her now as he had been on certain evenings in
London, when his arrival was to her a manifest pleasure, and their talk
unflagging from hour to hour. She did not show the spirit of holiday,
seemed weary from time to time, was too often preoccupied and
indisposed to talk. True, she had at length fulfilled her promise of
telling him the whole of her story, but even this increase of
confidence Waymark's uneasy mind strangely converted into fresh source
of discomfort to himself. She had made this revelation--he half
believed--on purpose to keep up the distance between them, to warn him
how slight occasion had led her from what is called the path of virtue,
that he might not delude himself into exaggerated estimates of her
character. Such a thought could of course only be due to the fact that
Ida's story had indeed produced something of this impression upon her
hearer. Waymark had often busied himself with inventing all manner of
excuses for her, had exerted his imagination to the utmost to hit upon
some most irresistible climax of dolorous circumstances to account for
her downfall. He had yet to realise that circumstances are as relative
in their importance as everything else in this world, and that ofttimes
the greatest tragedies revolve on apparently the most insignificant
outward events--personality being all.

He spent the hours of her absence in moving from place to place,
fretting in mind. At one moment, he half determined to bring things to
some issue, by disregarding all considerations and urging his love upon
her. Yet this he felt he could not d