water and the
cliffs. Breakers there were none, not more ripple at the clear
tide-edge than on the border of a little lake. So intense was the
silence that every now and then could be distinctly heard a call on one
of the fishing-boats lying some distance from shore. The town was no
longer in sight.

It was close even here; what little breeze there was brushed the face
like the warm wing of a passing bird. Ida dipped her hands in the water
and sprinkled it upon her forehead. Then she took off her boots and
stockings, and walked with her feet in the ripples. A moment after she
stopped, and looked all around, as if hesitating at some thought, and
wishing to see that her solitude was secure. Just then the sound of a
clock came very faintly across the still air, striking the hour of one.
She stepped from the water a few paces, and began hastily to put off
her clothing; in a moment her feet were again in the ripples, and she
was walking out from the beach, till her gleaming body was hidden. Then
she bathed, breasting the full flow with delight, making the sundered
and broken water flash myriad reflections of the moon and stars.

* * * * *

Waymark was at the station next morning half an hour before train-time.
He waited for Ida's arrival before taking his ticket. She did not come.
He walked about in feverish impatience, plaguing himself with all
manner of doubt and apprehension. The train came into the station, and
yet she had not arrived. It started, and no sign of her.

He waited yet five minutes, then walked hastily into the town, and to
Ida's lodgings. Miss Starr, he was told, had left very early that
morning; if he was Mr. Waymark, there was a note to be delivered to him.

"I thought it better that I should go to London by an earlier train,
for we should not have been quite at our ease with each other. I beg
you will not think my leaving you is due to anything but
necessity--indeed it is not. I shall not be living at the old place,
but any letter you send there I shall get. I cannot promise to reply at
once, but hope you will let me do so when I feel able to.

I. S."

Waymark took the next train to town.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ENDERBYS

Some twenty years before the date we have reached, the Rev. Paul
Enderby, a handsome young man, endowed with moral and intellectual
qualities considerably above the average, lived and worked in a certain
small town of Yorkshire.

He had