and, along the cliff
side. She was a curious mixture or shyness and courage. She talked very
little, but she gripped her companion's fingers tightly.

"I can show you," she said, "where the seagulls build, and I can tell
you the very spot in the sea where the sun goes down night after night.

"There are some baby seagulls in one of the nests, but I daren't go very
near for the mother bird is so strong. Father used to say that when they
have their baby birds to look after, they are as fierce as eagles."

"Your father used to walk with you here, Juliet?" Aynesworth asked.

"Always till the last few months when he got weaker and weaker," she
answered. "Since then I come every day alone."

"Don't you find it lonely?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"At first," she answered, "not now. It makes me unhappy. Would you like
to go down on the beach and look for shells? I can find you some very
pretty ones."

They clambered down and wandered hand in hand by the seashore. She told
him quaint little stories of the smugglers, of wrecks, and the legends
of the fisher people. Coming back along the sands, she clung to his arm
and grew more silent. Her eyes sought his every now and then, wistfully.
Presently she pointed out a tiny whitewashed cottage standing by itself
on a piece of waste ground.

"That is where I live now, at least for a day or two," she said. "They
cannot keep me any longer. When are you going away?"

"Very soon, I am afraid, little girl," he answered. "I will come and see
you, though, before I go."

"You promise," she said solemnly.

"I promise," Aynesworth repeated.

Then she held up her face, a little timidly, and he kissed her.
Afterwards, he watched her turn with slow, reluctant footsteps to the
unpromising abode which she had pointed out. Aynesworth made his way to
the inn, cursing his impecuniosity and Wingrave's brutal indifference.

He found the latter busy writing letters.

"Doing your work, Aynesworth?" he remarked coldly. "Be so good as to
write to Christie's for me, and ask them to send down a valuer to go
through the pictures."

"You are really going to sell!" Aynesworth exclaimed.

"Most certainly," Wingrave answered. "Heirlooms and family pictures
are only so much rubbish to me. I am the last of my line, and I doubt
whether even my lawyer could discover a next of kin for my personal
property. Sell! Of course I'm going to sell! What use is all this
hoarded rubbish to me? I am going t