hat it was the first time she had called him
by his Christian name.

'I can't see where you are, and I am afraid to follow.'

Afraid to follow. How strangely that altered his conception of her.
Till this moment she had stood in his mind as the imperious, invincible
Marcia of old. There was a strange pathos in this revelation. He went
back and felt for her hand. 'I'll lead you down,' he said. And he did
so.

They looked out upon the sea, and the lightship shining as if it had
quite forgotten all about the fugitives. 'I am so uneasy,' said Marcia.
'Do you think they got safely to land?'

'Yes,' replied some one other than Jocelyn. It was a boatman smoking in
the shadow of the boathouse. He informed her that they were picked up by
the lightship men, and afterwards, at their request, taken across to
the opposite shore, where they landed, proceeding thence on foot to
the nearest railway station and entering the train for London. This
intelligence had reached the island about an hour before.

'They'll be married to-morrow morning!' said Marcia.

'So much the better. Don't regret it, Marcia. He shall not lose by it. I
have no relation in the world except some twentieth cousins in the isle,
of whom her father was one, and I'll take steps at once to make her a
good match for him. As for me... I have lived a day too long.'

3. VIII. 'ALAS FOR THIS GREY SHADOW, ONCE A MAN!'

In the month of November which followed Pierston was lying dangerously
ill of a fever at his house in London.

The funeral of the second Avice had happened to be on one of those
drenching afternoons of the autumn, when the raw rain flies level as the
missiles of the ancient inhabitants across the beaked promontory which
has formed the scene of this narrative, scarcely alighting except
against the upright sides of things sturdy enough to stand erect.
One person only followed the corpse into the church as chief mourner,
Jocelyn Pierston--fickle lover in the brief, faithful friend in the
long run. No means had been found of communicating with Avice before the
interment, though the death had been advertised in the local and other
papers in the hope that it might catch her eye.

So, when the pathetic procession came out of the church and moved round
into the graveyard, a hired vehicle from Budmouth was seen coming at
great speed along the open road from Top-o'-Hill. It stopped at the
churchyard gate, and a young man and woman alighted and entered,