III

A STRANGE MEETING

Grayness reigned everywhere--in the sky, on the hillside, and on the
bare moor, no longer made resplendent by the gleaming beauty of the
purple heather and fainter flashes of yellow gorse. The dry, springy
turf had become a swamp, and phantom-like wreaths of mist blurred and
saddened the landscape. The sweet stirring of the summer wind amongst
the pine trees had given place to the melancholy drip of raindrops
falling from their heavy, drooping branches on to the soddened ground.
Every vestige of coloring had died out of the landscape--from the sea,
the clouds, and the heath. It was the earth's mourning season, when the
air has neither the keen freshness of winter, the buoyancy of spring,
the sweet drowsy languor of summer, or the bracing exhilaration of
autumn. It was November.

Daylight was fast fading away; but the reign of twilight had not yet
commenced. After a blustering morning, a sudden stillness had fallen
upon the earth. The wild north wind had ceased its moaning in the pine
trees, and no longer came booming across the level moorland. The dull
gray clouds which all day long had been driven across the leaden sky in
flying haste, hung low down upon the sad earth, and from over the water
a sea fog rose to meet them. Nature had nothing more cheerful to offer
than silence, a dim light, and indescribable desolation.

A solitary man, with his figure carved out in sharp relief against the
vaporous sky, stood on the highest point of the cliff. Everything in his
attitude betokened the deepest dejection--in which at least he was in
sympathy with his surroundings. His head drooped upon his bent
shoulders, and his dark, weary eyes were fixed upon the rising sea fog
in a vacant gaze. Warmly clad as he was, he seemed chilled through his
whole being by the raw lifelessness of the air. Yet he did not move.

The utter silence was suddenly broken by the rising of a little flock of
gulls from among the stunted firs hanging down over the cliff. Almost
immediately afterwards there came another sound, denoting the advance of
a human being. The little hand gate leading out of the plantation was
opened and shut, and light footsteps began to ascend the ridge of the
cliffs on which he was standing, hesitating now and then, but always
advancing. As soon as he became sure of this, he turned his head in the
direction from which they came, and found himself face to face with
Helen Thurwell.

It was the first