xcited that night, the rustling of the
young leaves upon them whispered the name of Olivia. The hoof-beats of
my mare's feet upon the hard roads echoed the name Olivia, Olivia!

By-and-by I turned off the road to got nearer the sea, and rode along
sandy lanes with banks of turf instead of hedge-rows, which were covered
thickly with pale primroses, shining with the same hue as the moon above
them. As I passed the scattered cottages, here and there a dog yapped a
shrill, snarling hark, and woke the birds, till they gave a sleepy
twitter in their new nests.

Now and then I came in full sight of the sea, glittering in the silvery
light. I crossed the head of a gorge, and stopped for a while to gaze
down it, till my flesh crept. It was not more than a few yards in
breadth, but it was of unknown depth, and the rocks stood above it with
a thick, heavy blackness. The tide was rushing into its narrow channel
with a thunder which throbbed like a pulse; yet in the intervals of its
pulsation I could catch the thin, prattling tinkle of a brook running
merrily down the gorge to plunge headlong into the sea. Round every spar
of the crags, and over every islet of rock, the foam played ceaselessly,
breaking over them like drifts of snow, forever melting, and forever
forming again.

I kept on my way, as near the sea as I I could, past the sleeping
cottages and hamlets, round through St. Pierre du Bois and Torteval,
with the gleaming light-houses out on the Hanways, and by Rocquaine Bay,
and Vazon Bay, and through the vale to Captain Carey's peaceful house,
where, perhaps, to-morrow night--nay, this day's night--Julia might be
weeping and wailing broken-hearted.

I had made the circuit of our island--a place so dear to me that it
seemed scarcely possible to live elsewhere; yet I should be forced to
live elsewhere. I knew that with a clear distinctness. There could be no
home for me in Guernsey when my conduct toward Julia should become
known.

But now Sark, which had been behind me all my ride, lay full in sight,
and the eastern sky behind it began to quicken with new light. The gulls
were rousing themselves, and flying out to sea, with their plaintive
cries; and the larks were singing their first sleepy notes to the coming
day.

As the sun rose, Sark looked very near, and the sea, a plain of silvery
blue, seemed solid and firm enough to afford me a road across to it. A
white mist lay like a huge snow-drift in hazy, broad curves ov