on her hand, looking out over the sea--looking
with rapt attention, and yet with eyes that seemed to notice nothing.
Mrs. Wragge wearied of the pebbles, and lost her interest in looking at
the pleasure-boats. Her great head began to nod heavily, and she dozed
in the warm, drowsy air. When she woke, the pleasure-boats were far off;
their sails were white specks in the distance. The idlers on the beach
were thinned in number; the sun was low in the heaven; the blue sea was
darker, and rippled by a breeze. Changes on sky and earth and ocean
told of the waning day; change was everywhere--except close at her side.
There Magdalen sat, in the same position, with weary eyes that still
looked over the sea, and still saw nothing.

"Oh, do speak to me!" said Mrs. Wragge.

Magdalen started, and looked about her vacantly.

"It's late," she said, shivering under the first sensation that reached
her of the rising breeze. "Come home; you want your tea." They walked
home in silence.

"Don't be angry with me for asking," said Mrs. Wragge, as they sat
together at the tea-table. "Are you troubled, my dear, in your mind?"

"Yes," replied Magdalen. "Don't notice me. My trouble will soon be
over."

She waited patiently until Mrs. Wragge had made an end of the meal, and
then went upstairs to her own room.

"Monday!" she said, as she sat down at her toilet-table. "Something may
happen before Monday comes!"

Her fingers wandered mechanically among the brushes and combs, the tiny
bottles and cases placed on the table. She set them in order, now in one
way, and now in another--then on a sudden pushed them away from her in a
heap. For a minute or two her hands remained idle. That interval passed,
they grew restless again, and pulled the two little drawers backward and
forward in their grooves. Among the objects laid in one of them was a
Prayer-book which had belonged to her at Combe-Raven, and which she had
saved with her other relics of the past, when she and her sister had
taken their farewell of home. She opened the Prayer-book, after a long
hesitation, at the Marriage Service, shut it again before she had read a
line, and put it back hurriedly in one of the drawers. After turning the
key in the locks, she rose and walked to the window. "The horrible
sea!" she said, turning from it with a shudder of disgust--"the lonely,
dreary, horrible sea!"

She went back to the drawer, and took the Prayer-book out for the second
time, half opened