d
hurried across the lawn towards the high road. I walked at a sharp
pace towards the old church. The bark of a distant dog or the baa of
a waking sheep was the only sound. When I reached the churchyard, I
peered in dread over the lich-gate before I opened it. Neither Wynne
nor any living creature was to be seen in the churchyard.

The soothing smell of the sea came from the cliffs, making me wonder
at my fears. On the loneliest coast, in the dunnest night, a sense of
companionship comes with the smell of seaweed. At my feet spread the
great churchyard, with its hundreds of little green hillocks and
white gravestones, sprinkled here and there with square, box-like
tombs. All quietly asleep in the moonlight! Here and there an aged
headstone seemed to nod to its neighbour, as though muttering in its
dreams. The old church, bathed in the radiance, seemed larger than it
had ever done in daylight, and incomparably more grand and lonely.

On the left were the tall poplar trees, rustling and whispering among
themselves. Still, there might be at the back of the church mischief
working. I walked round thither. The ghostly shadows on the long
grass might have been shadows thrown by the ruins of Tadmor, so
quietly did they lie and dream. A weight was uplifted from my soul.
A balm of sweet peace fell upon my heart. The noises I had heard had
been imaginary, conjured up by love and fear; or they might have been
an echo of distant thunder. The windows of the church no doubt looked
ghastly, as I peered in to see whether Wynne's lantern was moving
about. But all was still. I lingered in the churchyard close by the
spot where I had first seen the child Winifred and heard the Welsh
song.

I went to look at the sea from the cliff. Here, however, there was
something sensational at last. The spot where years ago I had sat
when Winifred's song had struck upon my ear and awoke me to a new
life--_was gone_! 'This then was the noise I heard,' I said; 'the
rumbling was the falling of the earth; the shriek was the tearing
down of trees.'

Another slice, a slice weighing thousands of tons, had slipped since
the afternoon from the churchyard on to the sands below. 'Perhaps the
tread of the townspeople who came to witness the funeral may have
given the last shake to the soil,' I said.

I stood and looked over the newly-made gap at the great hungry water.
Considering the little wind, the swell on the North Sea was
tremendous. Far away there ha