, and 'aving done this and lingered to the
last moment, one after the other dropped away with awe-stricken souls
until the last was gone. And under the arch of sunny sky the little
shining waves ran up the beach, chasing each other over the glittering
sand, catching at shells and sea-weed, toying with them for a moment,
and then leaving them, rippling and curling and whispering, but
creeping--creeping--creeping.

They gave his message to the woman he had loved with all the desperate
strength of his dull, yet unchanging nature; and when the man who gave
it to her saw her wild, white face and hard-set lips, he blundered upon
some dim guess as to what that single word might have been, but the
sharpest of them never knew the stubborn anguish that, following and
growing day by day, crushed her fierce will and shook her heart. She
was as hard as ever, they thought; but they were none of them the men
or women to guess at the long dormant instinct of womanhood and remorse
that the tragedy of this one day of her life had awakened. She had said
she would never forgive him, and perhaps her very strength made it long
before she did; but surely some subtle chord was touched by those heavy
last words, for when, months later, her first love came back, faithful
and tender, with his old tale to tell she would not listen.

"Nay, lad," she said, "I amna a feather to blow wi' th' wind. I've had
my share o' trouble wi' men foak, an' I ha' no mind to try again. Him as
lies i' th' churchyard loved me i' his way--men foak's way is apt to be
a poor un--an' I'm wore out wi' life. Dunnot come here courtin'--tak' a
better woman."

But yet, there are those who say that the time will come when he will
not plead in vain.

End of Project Gutenberg's One Day At Arle, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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