Y AND MR. HANMER.

VII. FIRST OFFER.

VIII. CONCERNING MARGARET.

IX. THE PROSPECT.

X. THREE LADIES.

XI. THE ESPIAL.

XII. LADY CAROLINE.

XIII. DIANA VYELL.

XIV. MR. SILK PROPOSES.

XV. THE CHOOSING.

BOOK III.--THE BRIDALS.

I. BETROTHED.

II. THE RETURN.

III. NESTING.

IV. THE BRIDEGROOM.

V. RUTH'S WEDDING DAY.

VI. "YET HE WILL COME--".

VII. HOUSEKEEPING.

VIII. HOME-COMING.

BOOK IV.--LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.

I. BATTY LANGTON, CHRONICLER.

II. SIR OLIVER SAILS.

III. MISCALCULATING WRATH.

IV. THE TERRACE.

V. A PROLOGUE TO NOTHING.

VI. CHILDLESS MOTHER.

BOOK V.--LISBON AND AFTER.

I. ACT OF FAITH.

II. DONNA MARIA.

III. EARTHQUAKE.

IV. THE SEARCH.

V. THE FINDING.

VI. DOCUMENTS.

VII. THE LAST OFFER.

EPILOGUE

"An innocent life, yet far astray." Wordsworth's _Ruth_.

BOOK I.

PORT NASSAU.

Chapter I.

THE BEACH.

A coach-and-six, as a rule, may be called an impressive Object.
But something depends on where you see it.

Viewed from the tall cliffs--along the base of which, on a strip of
beach two hundred feet below, it crawled between the American continent
and the Atlantic Ocean--Captain Oliver Vyell's coach-and-six resembled
nothing so nearly as a black-beetle.

For that matter the cliffs themselves, swept by the spray and humming
with the roar of the beach--even the bald headland towards which they
curved as to the visible bourne of all things terrestrial--shrank in
comparison with the waste void beyond, where sky and ocean weltered
together after the wrestle of a two days' storm; and in comparison with
the thought that this rolling sky and heaving water stretched all the
way to Europe. Not a sail showed, not a wing anywhere under the leaden
clouds that still dropped their rain in patches, smurring out the
horizon. The wind had died down, but the ships kept their harbours and
the sea-birds their inland shelters. Alone of animate things, Captain
Vyell's coach-and-six crept forth and along the beach, as though tempted
by the promise of a wintry gleam to landward.

A god--if we may suppose one of the old careless Olympians seated there
on the cliff-top, nursing his knees--must have enjoyed the comedy of it,
and laughed to think that this pert beetle, ed