What strange light was this that fell from
the white skies above, rendering all the objects around them sharp its
outline and intense in color? The beach before them seemed of a pale
lilac, where the green waves broke in a semicircle of white. On their
right some masses of ruddy rock jutted out into the cold sea, and
there were huge black caverns into which the waves dashed and roared.
On their left and far above them towered a great and isolated rock,
its precipitous sides scored here and there with twisted lines of red
and yellow quartz; and on the summit of this bold headland, amid
the dark green of the sea-grass, they could see the dusky ruins--the
crumbling walls and doorways and battlements--of the castle that is
named in all the stories of King Arthur and his knights. The bridge
across to the mainland has, in the course of centuries, fallen away,
but there, on the other side of the wide chasm, were the ruins of the
other portions of the castle, scarcely to be distinguished in parts
from the grass-grown rocks. How long ago was it since Sir Tristram
rode out here to the end of the world, to find the beautiful Isoulde
awaiting him--she whom he had brought from Ireland as an unwilling
bride to the old king Mark? And what of the joyous company of knights
and ladies who once held high sport in the courtyard there? Trelyon,
looking shyly at his companion, could see that her eyes seemed
centuries away from him. She was quite unconscious of his covertly
staring at her, for she was absently looking at the high and bare
precipices, the deserted slopes of dark sea-grass and the lonely
and crumbling ruins. She was wondering whether the ghosts of those
vanished people ever came back to this lonely headland, where they
would find the world scarcely altered since they had left it. Did they
come at night, when the land was dark, and when there was a light
over the sea only coming from the stars? If one were to come at night
alone, and to sit down here by the shore, might not one see strange
things far overhead or hear some sound other than the falling of the
waves?

"Miss Wenna," he said--and she started suddenly--"are you bold enough
to climb with me up to the castle? I know my mother would rather stay
here."

She went with him mechanically. She followed him up the rude steps
cut in the steep slopes of slate, holding his hand where that was
possible, but her head was so full of dreams that she answered him
when he spoke only