g, or would
play, any part in his movements, as it did; and more than that, it led
him that balmy June afternoon, when the sea and sky were in perfect
accord, to the gorge and to the very spot where, ten days before, he had
been mystified. And now he was more so, for not only did he hear the
same low, sweet strains mingling with the ocean's murmur, but he began
to realize that some invisible influence, quite beyond his
understanding, had brought him hither. What it was he could not tell, or
where, or from whence it came, only that he felt it and obeyed.

And so forcibly did this uncanny sense of helplessness oppress him, that
the weird strains of music, issuing from the rocks below, seemed ten
times more so. For one instant he could not help feeling almost scared,
and thought it well to pinch himself to see if he were awake, and the
music and his presence there not a dream. Then he sat down. Surely, if
it were a dream, it was a most exquisite one, for away to the eastward
and all around, a half-circle, the boundless ocean, with here and there
a white-winged vessel, and white-crested waves flashing in the
sunlight, lay before; while beneath him and sloping V-shaped a hundred
feet below, and to where the billows leaped over the weed-clad rocks,
lay this chasm. Back of him, and casting their conical shadows over the
chaos of boulders in the gorge, was a thicket of spruce, and to add a
touch of heaven to this desolate but grand vision, the faint whisper of
music mingling with the monotone of the waves and the sighing of winds
in the spruces.

And then the wonder of it all, and what a romantic and singular fancy of
this fisher maid to thus hide herself where only the mermaids of old
might have come to sing sad ditties while they combed their sea-green
tresses. That it was Mona Hutton he felt almost certain, and his first
impulse was to descend into the chasm at once and surprise her. Then he
thought, if perchance it were not, would that be the act of a gentleman?
Doubtless whoever it was had come there to find seclusion, and for him
to thus intrude would certainly be rude. The next thought, and the one
he acted upon, was to go back a little of the way he came, hide himself,
and, when she appeared, advance to meet her. The way to the village was
over a rounded hill a full mile in length, with scattered clusters of
bayberry bushes between. Back over this a hundred rods Winn retreated,
and not thinking how his presence there w