d
sex was to be installed under its roof. I remembered one or two
particulars, a few notes of daintiness and almost of coquetry which had
struck me the day before as I surveyed the preparations in the house;
their purpose was now clear, and I thought myself dull not to have
perceived it from the first.

While I was thus reflecting, a second lantern drew near me from the beach.
It was carried by a yachtsman whom I had not yet seen, and who was
conducting two other persons to the pavilion. These two persons were
unquestionably the guests for whom the house was made ready; and,
straining eye and ear, I set myself to watch them as they passed. One was
an unusually tall man, in a traveling hat slouched over his eyes, and a
highland cape closely buttoned and turned up so as to conceal his face.
You could make out no more of him than that he was, as I have said,
unusually tall, and walked feebly with a heavy stoop. By his side, and
either clinging to him or giving him support--I could not make out
which--was a young, tall, and slender figure of a woman. She was extremely
pale; but in the light of the lantern her face was so marred by strong and
changing shadows, that she might equally well have been as ugly as sin or
as beautiful as I afterwards found her to be.

When they were just abreast of me, the girl made some remark which was
drowned by the noise of the wind.

"Hush!" said her companion; and there was something in the tone with which
the word was uttered that thrilled and rather shook my spirits. It seemed
to breathe from a bosom laboring under the deadliest terror; I have never
heard another syllable so expressive; and I still hear it again when I am
feverish at night, and my mind runs upon old times. The man turned toward
the girl as he spoke; I had a glimpse of much red beard and a nose which
seemed to have been broken in youth; and his light eyes seemed shining in
his face with some strong and unpleasant emotion.

But these two passed on and were admitted in their turn to the pavilion.

One by one, or in groups, the seamen returned to the beach. The wind
brought me the sound of a rough voice crying, "Shove off!" Then, after a
pause, another lantern drew near. It was Northmour alone.

My wife and I, a man and a woman, have often agreed to wonder how a person
could be, at the same time, so handsome and so repulsive as Northmour. He
had the appearance of a finished gentleman; his face bore every mark of
intellige