still befogged, and makes up opinions on the
subject like a divine when miracles are in question, instead of
searching for information like an honest philosopher, whose glory it
is, not to prove himself right, but to discover the truth.

Beth did not sleep much that night. She recalled the sigh and sob and
freshness of the sea, and caught her breath again as if the cool water
were still washing up and up and up towards her. She saw the silver
surface, too, stretching on to those shining palaces, where grass and
tree showed vivid green against white walls, and flowers stood still
on airless terraces, shedding strange perfumes. And she also saw her
new acquaintance coming towards her, balancing himself on the
slippery, wrack-grown rocks, in boots and things that were much too
good for the purpose; but Alfred and Dicksie never appeared, and were
not to be found of her imagination. They were nowhere.

She expected to see them in church next day--at least, so she assured
herself, and then was surprised to find that there was no sort of
certainty in herself behind the assurance, although they had always
hitherto been in church. "Something is different, somehow," she
thought, and the phrase became a kind of accompaniment to all her
thoughts.

Dicksie was the first person she saw when she entered the church, but
Alfred was not there, and he did not come. She went up the field-path
after the service, and waited about for Dicksie. When Alfred was
detained himself, Dicksie usually came to explain; but that day he did
not appear, and they were neither of them at the evening service. Beth
could not understand it, but she was more puzzled than perturbed.

She was reading French to her mother next morning by way of a lesson,
when they both happened to look up and see Mrs. Richardson, the
vicar's worn-out wife, passing the window. The next moment there was a
knock at the door.

"Can she be coming here?" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.

"What should she come here for?" Beth rejoined, her heart palpitating.

"Oh dear, oh dear! this is just what I expected!" Mrs. Caldwell
declared. "And if only she had come last week, I should have known
nothing about it."

"You don't know much as it is," Beth observed, without, however,
seeing why that should make any difference.

The next moment the vicar's wife was ushered in with a wink by
Harriet. Mrs. Caldwell and Beth both rose to receive her haughtily.
She had entered with assurance, but that