a that he found her, sitting in one of the shelters on
the parade, with her hands clasped in her lap, looking listlessly at a
fisher-boat putting out from the yellow sands below. She glanced round
at the sound of his footsteps, and, seeing who it was, came out from the
shelter and advanced to meet him.

"They told me at the hotel somebody had been asking for me, and I
guessed it was you. You wanted to see me?"

"Yes." She did not express any surprise at his return, as another girl
would, but stood with her hands still clasped in front of her, and a
look of entreaty in her eyes. Colwyn noticed that her face had grown
thinner, and that in the depths of her glance there lurked a troubled
shadow.

"Shall we walk a little and you can tell me what you wish to say?"

"It is very kind of you."

He turned away from the front and towards the cliffs, judging that the
girl would feel more disposed to talk freely away from human habitation
and people. They went on for some distance in silence, the girl walking
with a light quick step, looking straight in front of her, as though
immersed in thought.

They reached a part of the cliffs where a low wall divided the foreland
from an old churchyard which was fast crumbling into the sea. Peggy
paused with her hand on the wall, and looked seaward. The sun, piercing
a rift in the dark clouds, lighted the sullen grey waters with patches
of gold. Colwyn, in the hope of inducing his companion to talk, pointed
out the beautiful effect of the light and shadow on the sea.

"I hate the sea! I have never looked at it since the war started without
seeing the many, many dead sailor boys at the bottom, staring up with
their dead eyes through the weight of waters for a God of Justice in the
heavens, and looking in vain." She turned her eyes from the sea, and
looked at him passionately. "You do not care about the sea, either. You
are only trying to put me at my ease--to help me say what I want to
say. It is kind of you, but it is not necessary. I feel I can trust
you--I must trust you. I am only a girl and there is nobody else in the
world I dare trust. It is about--_him_. Have you seen him? Have you
spoken to him? Did he speak about me?"

"I saw him only at the trial," replied Colwyn, with his ready
comprehension. "I had no opportunity of speaking to him alone."

"I read about the trial in the paper," she went on. "They said that he
was mad in order to try and save him, but he is not mad--he w