reared high on its mound of grass, closed the
view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset
glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the
far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming
water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of
the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer
still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost
little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of
decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the
oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling
of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry
of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from
farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call
the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm.

Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the
mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us
stop and rest here."

She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically
pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing
under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some
minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she
asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?"

The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain
with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate
occasion.

"If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find
you changed."

She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the
reason?" she said.

The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow.

"I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and
faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps,
but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died
sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think
of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I
am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls o f grass.
I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't
know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost?
It has gone; and there's an end