s, white headlands, mossy cliffs, with the
scarlet poppies and pink-eyed convolvuli growing out of the weedy
crevices; above, a blue ineffable sky scored deeply with tinted
clouds, and a sea dipping on the shore with a long slow ripple of
sound; under a bowlder a child bathing her feet in a little runlet of
a pool, while all round, heaped up with coarse wavy grasses, lay
seaweed--brown, coralline, and purple--their salty fragrance steeping
the air; everywhere the sound of cool splashes and a murmur of peace.

The child sat under the bowlder alone, a small brown creature in
picturesque-looking rags, a mere waif and stray of a child, with her
feet trailing in the pool; every now and then small mottled crabs
scrambled crookedly along, or dug graves for themselves in the dry
waved sand. The girl watched them idly, as she flapped long ribbons of
brown seaweed, or dribbled the water through her hollowed hands, while
a tired sea-gull that had lowered wing was skimming slowly along the
margin of the water.

Another time Margaret would have paused to speak to the little waif of
humanity before her, for she was a lover of children, and was never
happier than when she was surrounded by these little creatures--the
very babies crowed a welcome to her from their mother's arms. But this
evening Margaret's eyes had a strange unseeing look in them; they were
searching the winding shore for some expected object, and she scarcely
seemed to notice the little one at her play.

Only four-and-twenty hours had passed since Sir Wilfred had paid that
ill-omened visit to the Grange, and yet some subtle mysterious change
had passed over Margaret. It was as though some blighting influence
had swept over her; her face was pale, and her eyes were swollen and
dim as though with a night's weeping, and the firm beautiful mouth was
tremulous with pain.

"I thought I should have met him by now," she murmured; "I am nearly
at the boat-house; surely Sir Wilfred must have given him my message."
But the doubt had hardly crossed her mind before a tall figure turned
the corner by the lonely boat-house, and the next moment Hugh was
coming rapidly toward her.

"Margaret!" he exclaimed, as he caught hold of her outstretched hands,
"what does this mean? why have you kept me away from you all these
hours, and then appointed this solitary place for our meeting?" Then,
as she did not answer, and he looked at her more closely, his voice
changed: "Good heavens! wh