ndition was grievous she knew to be untrue, so that
concerning him there was not even that pity that she might have felt had
she believed--as he would have had her believe that he was dying.

As she pondered the monstrous disclosure he had made, her heart hardened
against him, and even as she had asked him whether indeed she was his
daughter, so now she vowed to herself that she would be his daughter no
longer. She would leave Castle Marleigh, never again to set eyes upon
her father, and she hoped that during the little time she must yet
remain there--a day, or two at most--she might be spared the ordeal of
again meeting a parent for whom respect was dead, and who inspired her
with just that feeling of horror she must have for any man who confessed
himself a murderer and a thief.

She resolved to repair to London to a sister of her mother's, where for
her dead mother's sake she would find a haven extended readily.

At eventide she came at last from her chamber.

She had need of air, need of the balm that nature alone can offer in
solitude to poor wounded human souls.

It was a mild and sunny evening, worthy rather of August than of
October, and aimlessly Mistress Cynthia wandered towards the cliffs
overlooking Sheringham Hithe. There she sate herself in sad dejection
upon the grass, and gazed wistfully seaward, her mind straying now from
the sorry theme that had held dominion in it, to the memories that very
spot evoked.

It was there, sitting as she sat now, her eyes upon the shimmering waste
of sea, and the gulls circling overhead, that she had awakened to
the knowledge of her love for Crispin. And so to him strayed now her
thoughts, and to the fate her father had sent him to; and thus back
again to her father and the evil he had wrought. It is matter for
conjecture whether her loathing for Gregory would have been as intense
as it was, had another than Crispin Galliard been his victim.

Her life seemed at an end as she sat that October evening on the cliffs.
No single interest linked her to existence; nothing, it seemed, was left
her to hope for till the end should come--and no doubt it would be long
in coming, for time moves slowly when we wait.

Wistful she sat and thought, and every thought begat a sigh, and then
of a sudden--surely her ears had tricked her, enslaved by her
imagination--a crisp, metallic voice rang out close behind her.

"Why are we pensive, Mistress Cynthia?"

There was a catch in her b