rmured in my ear. She had
talked to me, on the spot from which I now looked down, of her father,
who was her last surviving parent--had told me how fond of each other
they had been, and how sadly she missed him still when she entered
certain rooms in the house, and when she took up forgotten occupations
and amusements with which he had been associated. Was the view that I
had seen, while listening to those words, the view that I saw now,
standing on the hill-top by myself? I turned and left it--I wound my
way back again, over the moor, and round the sandhills, down to the
beach. There was the white rage of the surf, and the multitudinous
glory of the leaping waves--but where was the place on which she had
once drawn idle figures with her parasol in the sand--the place where
we had sat together, while she talked to me about myself and my home,
while she asked me a woman's minutely observant questions about my
mother and my sister, and innocently wondered whether I should ever
leave my lonely chambers and have a wife and a house of my own? Wind
and wave had long since smoothed out the trace of her which she had
left in those marks on the sand, I looked over the wide monotony of the
sea-side prospect, and the place in which we two had idled away the
sunny hours was as lost to me as if I had never known it, as strange to
me as if I stood already on a foreign shore.

The empty silence of the beach struck cold to my heart. I returned to
the house and the garden, where traces were left to speak of her at
every turn.

On the west terrace walk I met Mr. Gilmore. He was evidently in search
of me, for he quickened his pace when we caught sight of each other.
The state of my spirits little fitted me for the society of a stranger;
but the meeting was inevitable, and I resigned myself to make the best
of it.

"You are the very person I wanted to see," said the old gentleman. "I
had two words to say to you, my dear sir; and If you have no objection
I will avail myself of the present opportunity. To put it plainly,
Miss Halcombe and I have been talking over family affairs--affairs
which are the cause of my being here--and in the course of our
conversation she was naturally led to tell me of this unpleasant matter
connected with the anonymous letter, and of the share which you have
most creditably and properly taken in the proceedings so far. That
share, I quite understand, gives you an interest which you might not
otherwise