with the intention of reading the letters Mildred had given
him, and, passing through the dining-room, seated himself upon the
"stoep" which overlooked the garden in order to do so. At this time of
year it was, generally speaking, a quiet place enough; but on this
particular day scarcely had Arthur taken the letter from his pocket,
and--having placed the ring that it contained upon his trembling
finger, and repudiating the statement, marked "to be read first," on
account of its business-like appearance--glanced at the two first
lines of Angela's own letter, when the sound of hurrying feet and many
chattering voices reminded him that he could expect no peace anywhere
in the neighbourhood of the hotel. The second English mail was in, and
all the crowd of passengers, who were at this time pouring out to the
Cape to escape the English winter, had come, rejoicing, ashore, to
eat, drink, be merry, and buy parrots and wicker chairs while the
vessel coaled.

He groaned and fled, in his hurry leaving the statement on the bench
on which he was seated.

Some half-mile or so away, to the left of the town, where the sea had
encroached a little upon the shore of the island, there was a nook of
peculiar loveliness. Here the giant hand of Nature had cleft a ravine
in the mountains that make Madeira, down which a crystal streamlet
trickled to the patch of yellow sand that edged the sea. Its banks
sloped like a natural terrace, and were clothed with masses of
maidenhair ferns interwoven with feathery grasses, whilst up above
among the rocks grew aloes and every sort of flowering shrub.

Behind, clothed in forest, lay the mass of mountains, varied by the
rich green of the vine-clad valleys, and in front heaved the endless
ocean, broken only by one lonely rock that stood grimly out against
the purpling glories of the evening sky. This spot Arthur had
discovered in the course of his rambles with Mildred, and it was here
that he bent his steps to be alone to read his letters. Scarcely had
he reached the place, however, when he discovered, to his intense
vexation, that he had left the enclosure in Angela's letter upon the
verandah at the hotel. But, luckily, it chanced that, within a few
yards of the spot where he had seated himself, there was a native boy
cutting walking-sticks from the scrub. He called to him in Portuguese,
of which he had learnt a little, and, writing something on a card,
told him to take it to the manager of the hotel,