ay quite early, Mrs. Pierston became brighter and brisker. She,
too, plainly had doubts about the wisdom of delay, and turning to her
daughter said, 'Now, my dear, do you hear?'

It was ultimately agreed that the widow and her daughter should go
back in a day or two, to await Pierston's arrival on the wedding-eve,
immediately after their return.

* * *

In pursuance of the arrangement Pierston found himself on the south
shore of England in the gloom of the aforesaid evening, the isle, as
he looked across at it with his approach, being just discernible as a
moping countenance, a creature sullen with a sense that he was about to
withdraw from its keeping the rarest object it had ever owned. He had
come alone, not to embarrass them, and had intended to halt a couple of
hours in the neighbouring seaport to give some orders relating to the
wedding, but the little railway train being in waiting to take him on,
he proceeded with a natural impatience, resolving to do his business
here by messenger from the isle.

He passed the ruins of the Tudor castle and the long featureless rib of
grinding pebbles that screened off the outer sea, which could be heard
lifting and dipping rhythmically in the wide vagueness of the Bay.
At the under-hill island townlet of the Wells there were no flys, and
leaving his things to be brought on, as he often did, he climbed the
eminence on foot.

Half-way up the steepest part of the pass he saw in the dusk a figure
pausing--the single person on the incline. Though it was too dark to
identify faces, Pierston gathered from the way in which the halting
stranger was supporting himself by the handrail, which here bordered the
road to assist climbers, that the person was exhausted.

'Anything the matter?' he said.

'O no--not much,' was returned by the other. 'But it is steep just
here.'

The accent was not quite that of an Englishman, and struck him as
hailing from one of the Channel Islands. 'Can't I help you up to the
top?' he said, for the voice, though that of a young man, seemed faint
and shaken.

'No, thank you. I have been ill; but I thought I was all right again;
and as the night was fine I walked into the island by the road. It
turned out to be rather too much for me, as there is some weakness left
still; and this stiff incline brought it out.'

'Naturally. You'd better take hold of my arm--at any rate to the brow
here.'

Thus pressed the s