madness. What unutterable folly! He
was not free--he was bound to another by every cord of honour and
self-respect. And, even were he free, Magdalen Crawford would be no
fit wife for him--in the eyes of the world, at least. A girl from the
Cove--a girl with little education and no social standing--aye! but he
loved her.

He groaned again and again in his misery. Afar down the slope the bay
waters lay like an inky strip and the distant, murmurous plaint of the
sea came out of the stillness of the night; the lights at the Cove
glimmered faintly.

In the week that followed he went to the Cove every day. Sometimes he
did not see Magdalen; at other times he did. But at the end of the
week he had conquered in the bitter, heart-crushing struggle with
himself. If he had weakly given way to the first mad sweep of a new
passion, the strength of his manhood reasserted itself at last.
Faltering and wavering were over, though there was passionate pain in
his voice when he said at last, "I am not coming back again,
Magdalen."

They were standing in the shadow of the pine-fringed point that ran
out to the left of the Cove. They had been walking together along the
shore, watching the splendour of the sea sunset that flamed and glowed
in the west, where there was a sea of mackerel clouds, crimson and
amber tinted, with long, ribbon-like strips of apple-green sky
between. They had walked in silence, hand in hand, as children might
have done, yet with the stir and throb of a mighty passion seething in
their hearts.

Magdalen turned as Esterbrook spoke, and looked at him in a long
silence. The bay stretched out before them, tranced and shimmering; a
few stars shone down through the gloom of dusk. Right across the
translucent greens and roses and blues of the west hung a dark,
unsightly cloud, like the blurred outline of a monstrous bat. In the
dim, reflected light the girl's mournful face took on a weird,
unearthly beauty. She turned her eyes from Esterbrook Elliott's set
white face to the radiant gloom of the sea.

"That is best," she answered at last, slowly.

"Best--yes! Better that we had never met! I love you--you know
it--words are idle between us. I never loved before--I thought I did.
I made a mistake and I must pay the penalty of that mistake. You
understand me?"

"I understand," she answered simply.

"I do not excuse myself--I have been weak and cowardly and disloyal.
But I have conquered myself--I will be true to the