beneath the cliff to the
inn, where the sleepy servant admitted him with a sigh of relief, and
wondered how _les Anglais_ could be so strange and care so little for
their beds.

CHAPTER FIFTY TWO.

THE CULMINATION OF DESPAIR.

Stratton went to his room, put out his light, and threw open the
casement to sit and listen to the wash and rush of the coming tide. It
was darker than ever, for the sea fog had grown dense, and the water
sobbed and moaned among the rocks, and splashed against the sides of the
fishing boats in a way that in the silence of the night sounded
mysterious and strange.

All this added to Stratton's depression, and the sense of coming
trouble. It was impossible to pass it over as imaginary, face to face
as he was with the terrible difficulties before him; for in that tiny
place, unless Barron was hurried away, a meeting was imminent, and it
was his doing--his.

Guest laughed at the idea of his presence there being due to fate, he
recalled; but how else could he think of the strange complication but as
being wrought out by a greater directing hand? "And for what?" he
muttered. Could it be only to inflict fresh torture upon a gentle,
loving woman?

The mental outlook was as black and misty as that across the sands to
the moaning, sighing sea; and as Stratton sat there, with the damp, soft
air cooling his brow, he longed for rest, and thought of the peace and
gentle calm that he might find if he could take a boat and sail right
away into the soft, black darkness.

He shook his head mournfully, though, for he knew that he could not sail
away from his thoughts, and that it would be the act of a coward to try
and escape from the sufferings which fell to his lot.

To sleep was impossible. He did not even think of lying down, but sat
there waiting for the first streaks of day with the face of Myra always
before him, her eyes looking gravely into his with a sweet, trustful
tenderness, which made him recall her visit to his chambers that night
when she knelt before him with her arms outstretched to take him to her
breast, and he asked himself why he had shrunk from her--why he had not
crushed down conscience, and the horror of his having slain her husband,
and taken her away--anywhere so that they two could have been together
far from the world and its ways.

For his dread had been his own making. It was not real. The shot was
an accident, not even dealt by his own hand, and the man had live