lay beneath, and knew hardly less
surely, that somewhere beneath the sea she overlooked the body of
Christian lay. Nearest the sea was the grave on the windblown, barren
cliff. No flower could bloom there ever, only close dun turf grew. Below
stretched the broken, unquiet sea, fretted with rock and surf, deep
chanting of the wind and moon. One white sea-bird was wheeling and
pitching restlessly to and fro.

She turned her eyes to the land far east for the thought of Lois. Over
there a winter dawn flushes into rose, kindles bright and brighter, and a
ruddy burnish takes the edges of flat cloud. Lo! the sun, and the grey
sea has flecks of red gold and the sea-bird gleams. She cannot face it.

Rhoda knelt down by the grave to pray. Presently she was lying face
downward along the turf, and she whispered to the one lying face upward
below.

'Ah! Diadyomene, ah! Margaret. God help me truly to forgive you for what
you have done.

'I have tried. Because he asked it, I have torn out my heart praying for
you.

'You fair thing! you were fairer than I, but you did not love him so well
as I.

'Ah! ah! would it were I who lay down there under the quiet shelter of
the turf; would it were you who lived, able to set up his honour and make
his name fair before all men!

'Ah! ah! a dark rebuke the mystery of your life has brought; and the
mystery of your death eats it in.

'Can you bear to be so silent, so silent, nor deliver a little word?

'When you rise, Diadyomene, when the dead from the sea rise, speak loud,
speak very loud, for all to hear.

'He loved you! He loved you!'

The sod above the face of Diadyomene was steeped with the piercing tears
of Rhoda. 'He loved you!' came many times as she sobbed.

Blind with tears, she rose, she turned from the grave; blind with tears,
she stood overlooking the sea; sun and shine made all a glimmering haze
to her. She turned from those desirable spaces for burial to stumble her
blind way back to the needs of the living.

It was late, after sunset, that Rhoda, faint and weary, dragged into
sight of the light of home. In the darkness a voice named her, struck her
still. 'Philip's voice!'

Groping for her in the dark, he touched her arm. Energy she had to strike
off his hand and start away, but it failed when she stumbled and fell
heavily; for then Philip without repulse helped her to her feet, and as
she staggered a little, stunned, would have her rest a moment, and found
the ba