ed Jocelyn.

'But she ought to have obeyed her mother--a good mother as she was! How
she had set her heart upon the wedding, poor soul; and we couldn't help
her knowing what had happened! O how ungrateful young folk be! That girl
will rue this morning's work!'

'We must get the doctor,' said Pierston, mechanically, hastening from
the room.

When the local practitioner came he merely confirmed their own verdict,
and thought her death had undoubtedly been hastened by the shock of the
ill news upon a feeble heart, following a long strain of anxiety about
the wedding. He did not consider that an inquest would be necessary.

* * *

The two shadowy figures seen through the grey gauzes of the morning by
Ruth, five hours before this time, had gone on to the open place by the
north entrance of Sylvania Castle, where the lane to the ruins of the
old castle branched off. A listener would not have gathered that
a single word passed between them. The man walked with difficulty,
supported by the woman. At this spot they stopped and kissed each other
a long while.

'We ought to walk all the way to Budmouth, if we wish not to be
discovered,' he said sadly. 'And I can't even get across the island,
even by your help, darling. It is two miles to the foot of the hill.'

She, who was trembling, tried to speak consolingly:

'If you could walk we should have to go down the Street of Wells, where
perhaps somebody would know me? Now if we get below here to the Cove,
can't we push off one of the little boats I saw there last night, and
paddle along close to the shore till we get to the north side? Then we
can walk across to the station very well. It is quite calm, and as the
tide sets in that direction, it will take us along of itself, without
much rowing. I've often got round in a boat that way.'

This seemed to be the only plan that offered, and abandoning the
straight road they wound down the defile spanned further on by the old
castle arch, and forming the original fosse of the fortress.

The stroke of their own footsteps, lightly as these fell, was flapped
back to them with impertinent gratuitousness by the vertical faces of
the rock, so still was everything around. A little further, and they
emerged upon the open ledge of the lower tier of cliffs, to the right
being the sloping pathway leading down to the secluded creek at their
base--the single practicable spot of exit from or entrance