bring her there. In such a
case Atra Cura would be left behind, and then she might be altogether
happy. She sat dreaming of this for above an hour, and Sophie was still
away. When Sophie returned, which she did all too soon, she explained
that she had been in her bedroom. She had been very busy, and now had
come down to make herself comfortable.

On the next evening Lady Ongar declared her intention of going up on the
downs by herself. They had dined at five, so that she might have a long
evening, and soon after six she started. "If I do not break down I will
get as far as the Needles," she said. Sophie, who had heard that the
distance was three miles, lifted up her hands in despair. "If you are
not back before nine I shall send the people after you." Consenting to
this with a laugh, Lady Ongar made her way up to the downs, and walked
steadily on toward the extreme point of the island. To the Needles
themselves she did not make her way. These rocks are now approached, as
all the stay-at-home travellers know, through a fort, and down to the
fort she did not go. But turning a little from the highest point of the
hill toward the cliffs on her left hand, she descended till she reached
a spot from which she could look down on the pebbly beach lying some
three hundred feet below her, and on the soft shining ripple of the
quiet waters as they moved themselves with a pleasant sound on the long
strand which lay stretched in a line from the spot beneath her out to
the point of the island. The evening was warm, and almost transparent in
its clearness, and very quiet. There was no sound even of a breeze. When
she seated herself close upon the margin of the cliff, she heard the
small waves moving the stones which they washed, and the sound was as
the sound of little children's voices, very distant. Looking down, she
could see through the wonderful transparency of the water, and the
pebbles below it were bright as diamonds, and the sands were burnished
like gold. And each tiny silent wavelet as it moved up toward the shore
and lost itself at last in its own effort, stretched itself the whole
length of the strand. Such brightness on the seashore she had never seen
before, nor had she ever listened as now she listened to that infantine
babble of the baby waves, She sat there close upon the margin, on a seat
of chalk which the winds had made, looking, listening, and forgetting
for a while that she was Lady Ongar whom people did not know,