the hour
the best of him was uppermost. Like the angels, who walk in heavenly
paths, he had no desire to be a thing that could stoop from moral
rectitude. The knowledge that his old love of the sea was his companion
only enhanced the strength of his vow, only made all that the strength
of vows mean more dear to him; and the moonlit shore was more beautiful,
and life, each moment that he was then living, more absolutely good.

So they went on, and he did not try to think where the sea-maid had come
from, or whether the gray flapping dress and the girlish step were but
the phantom guise that she could don for the hour, or whether, if he
should turn and pursue her, she would drop from her upright height into
the scaly folds that he had once seen, and plunge into the waves, or
whether _that_ had been the masquerade, and she a true woman of the
land. He did not know or care. Come what come might, his spirit walked
the beach that night with the beautiful spirit that the face of the
sea-maid interpreted to him.

CHAPTER VII.

THE GRAVE LADY.

The hills of Cloud Island were a fair sight to see in the moonlight.
When the traveller came close to them, the beach ended obviously in a
sandy road which led up on the island. There was a small white wooden
house near the beach; there was candlelight within, but Caius took no
notice of it. The next building was a lighthouse, which stood three
hundred yards farther on. The light looking seaward was not visible. He
passed the distance swiftly, and no sooner were his feet level with the
wall of the square wooden tower, than he turned about on the soft sandy
road and faced the wind that had been racing with him, and looked. The
scene was all as he might have expected to see it; but there was no
living creature in sight. He stood in the gale, bare-headed, looking,
looking; he had no desire to enter the house. The sea-maid was not in
sight, truly; but as long as he stood alone in the moonlight scene, he
felt that her presence was with him. Then he remembered the dying man of
whom he had been told, who lay in such need of his ministrations. The
thought came with no binding sense of duty such as he had felt
concerning the keeping of his vow. He would have scorned to do a
dishonourable thing in the face of the uplifting charm of the nature
around him, and, more especially, in the presence of his love; but what
had nature and this, her beautiful child, to do with the tending of
disea