, in the early dawn, a little
silent procession: the silent road, that was ever bringing tidings, good
or evil, to the auberge: though now no white-coiffed girl with a patient
face was waiting at the door. All the road was deserted, for the
villagers were still asleep, as the little procession wound its way
along: wrapped in the same silence in which Annette's own young life had
been passed. A cart with a plain coffin in it, was drawn by the old
horse that had carried Annette to the harbour the night before, and who
stepped as though he knew what burden he was bringing: Paul led the
horse; and beside the cart, with his head bowed on his breast, walked
Annette's father.

After the funeral rites were over, the smooth current of existence by
the roadside and the harbour flowed on, apparently in complete oblivion
of the fragile blossom of a girl's life, that had appeared for a little
while on its surface, and then been swept away for ever.

[Illustration:]

THE HALTING STEP.

CHAPTER I.

On the Western coast of one of the islands in the Channel group is a
level reach of salt marshes, to which the sea rises only at the highest
spring tides, and which at other times extends as far as the eye can
see, a dreary waste of salt pools, low rocks, and stretches of sand,
yielding its meagre product of shell-fish, samphire, and sea-weed to the
patient toil of the fisher-folk that dwell in scattered huts along the
shore. One arm of the bay, at the time of which I am writing, extended
inland to the left, being nearly cut off from the sea by a rocky
headland, behind which it had spread itself, so as almost to present the
appearance of an isolated pond or lake, encircled by low black rocks,
within which the water rose and sank at regular intervals, as if under
the influence of some strange, unknown power. On the borders of the lake
stood a low, one-roomed cabin, such as the island fishermen in the
wilder districts inhabit; and in the plot of ground beside the cabin,
one September evening, in the mellow, westering light, a woman might
have been seen busying herself by tying up into bundles the sea-weed
that had been spread out to dry in the sun. She wore a shade bonnet with
a large projecting peak and an enveloping curtain round the neck, quite
concealing her face, as she bent over her work. Presently, although no
sound had been heard, she looked up, with that apparently intuitive
sense of what is happening at sea, which se