public path she had not
previously noticed, passed close by her.

The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman.
His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary
observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look,
his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in
the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a
deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and
firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command.
He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed
the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden
surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration,
which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control,
to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment,
Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes
strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him
impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house.

The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He
had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in
the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the
clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him
familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to
walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they
turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and
twice looked back.

"A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that
moment.

"Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in
the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?"

"I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the
group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the
easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes
with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as
the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with
him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service.
He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for
a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The
clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's