as something significant. She even recollected
that, in speaking to her of Thyrza, he had turned his eyes seaward.
Such trifles could mean nothing as regarded Egremont, but how in
reference to herself? How if she knew that he had given his love to
another woman? I think that would be hard to bear.

And it was hard to bear.

Passion had won it over everything. He had taken Thyrza at the eleventh
hour, and now she was married to him. She did not doubt it; she felt
that Mrs. Ormonde did not doubt it. It _had_ meant something--that
failure to speak of the girl's beauty, that evasion with the eyes.

The night was cold, but she sat down by the shore, and let her head
droop as she listened to the sea-dirge. She could love him, now that it
was in vain. She knew now the warm yearning for his presence which at
Ullswater had never troubled her, and it was too late. No tears came to
her eyes; she did not even breathe a deeper breath. Most likely it
would pass without a single outbreak of grief.

And perhaps the thought of another's misery somewhat dulled the edge of
her own. Gilbert Grail was only a name to her, but he lived very
vividly in her imagination. Of course she had idealised him, as was
natural in a woman thinking of a man who has been represented to her as
full of native nobleness. For him, as for herself, her heart was heavy.
She knew that he must return to his hated day-labour, and how would it
now be embittered! What anguish of resentment! What despair of
frustrate passion!

She wished she could know him, and take his hand, and soothe him with a
woman's tenderness. His lot was harder than hers; nay, it was mockery
to compare them.

Annabel rose, murmuring old words:

''Therefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the
living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both they, which
hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work which is done under
the sun.''

CHAPTER XXVI

IDEALIST AND HIS FRIEND

Egremont alighted one evening at Charing Cross. He came direct from
Paris, and was alone. His absence from England had extended over a
fortnight.

He did not look better for his travels; one in the crowd waiting for
the arrival of the train might have supposed that he had suffered on
the sea-passage and was not yet quite recovered. Having bidden a porter
look after the bag which was his only luggage, he walked to the
book-stall to buy a periodical that he wished to take home with