December 16th.—Again I separate your green boards, my diary. No one has opened you; for your key, now a little rusty, still hangs upon my watch—my poor watch whose heart has ceased to beat, who, unlike its mistress, has not survived the ordeal by sand and water! What is better, no one has attempted to force your secrets from you; which, since it appears that it had been agreed that Molly de Savenaye was dead and buried in Scarthey sands, speaks well for all concerned. But she is not dead. She is very much alive; and very happy to be so.

This will indeed be an adventure worth reading, in the days to come; and it must be recounted—though were I to live to a hundred years I do not think I could ever forget it. Tanty Rose (she has not yet stopped scolding everybody for the fright she has had) is in the next room with Madeleine, who, poor dear, has been made quite ill by this prank of mine; but since after the distress caused by her Molly's death she has had the joy of finding her Molly alive again, things are balanced, I take it; and all being well that ends well, the whole affair is pleasant to remember. It has been actually as interesting as I expected—now that I think it over—even more.

Of all the many pictures that I fancied, not one was at all like the reality—and this reality I could not have rested till I had found. It was RenÉ's account decided me. I laid my plans very neatly to pay the recluse a little visit, and plead necessity for the intrusion. My machinations would have been perfect if they had not caused Madeleine and poor old Tanty unnecessary grief.

But now that I know the truth, I cannot distinctly remember what it was that I did expect to find on that island.

If it had not been that I had already gone through more excitement than I bargained for to reach that mysterious rock, how exciting I should have found it to wander up to unknown ruins, to knock at the closed doors of an enchanted castle, ascend unknown stairs and engage in devious unknown passages—all the while on the tiptoe of expectation!

But when I dragged myself giddy and faint from the boiling breakers and scrambled upon the desolate island under the rain that beat me like the lashes of a whip, pushing against a wind that bellowed and rushed as though determined to thrust me back to the waters I had cheated of their prey, my only thoughts were for succour and shelter.

Such warm shelter, such loving welcome, it was of course impossible that I could for a moment have anticipated!

Conceive, my dear diary, the feelings of a poor, semi-drowned wanderer, shivering with cold, with feet torn by cruel stones, who suddenly emerges from howl and turmoil into a warm, quiet room to be received as a long and eagerly expected guest, whose advent brings happiness, whose presence is a highly prized favour; in fact not as one who has to explain her intrusion, but as one who in the situation holds the upper hand herself.

And this was my welcome from him whose absence from Pulwick was more haunting than any presence I can think of!

Of course I knew him at once. Even had I not expected to see him—had I not come to seek him in fact—I should have known him at once from the portrait whose melancholy, wide-open eyes had followed me about the gallery. But I had not dreamed to see him so little altered. Now, apart from the dress, if he is in any way changed from the picture, it is in a look of greater youth and less sombreness. The portrait is handsome, but the original is better.

Had it not been so, I imagine I might have felt vastly different when I was seized and enfolded and—kissed! As it was I cannot remember that, even at the moment of this extraordinary proceeding, I was otherwise than pleased, nor that the dark hints of Mr. Landale concerning Sir Adrian's madness returned to disturb my mind in the least.

And yet I found myself enveloped in great strong arms out of which I could not have extricated myself by the most frantic efforts—although the folding was soft and tender—and I loved that impression. Why? I cannot say.

His words of love were not addressed to me; from his exclamation I knew that the real and present Molly was not the true object of his sudden ecstasy.

And yet I am glad that this is the first man who has been able to kiss Molly de Savenaye. It is quite incomprehensible; I ought to be indignant.

Now the whole secret of my reception is plain to see, and it is pathetic; Sir Adrian Landale was in love with my mother; when she was an unprotected widow he followed her to our own country; if she had not died soon after, he would have married her.

What a true knight must this Sir Adrian be, to keep so fresh for twenty years the remembrance of his boyish love that when I came in upon him to look at him with her eyes, it was to find him pondering upon her, and to fill his soul with the rapturous thought that his love had come back to him. Though I was aware that all this fervour was not addressed to me, there was something very gratifying in being so like one who could inspire such long-lived passion.—Yes, it was unexpectedly pleasant and comforting to be so received. And the tender care, the thoughtful solicitude next bestowed on the limp and dishevelled waif of the sea by my beau tÉnÉbreux were unmistakably meant for Molly and no one else, whatever his first imaginings may have been, and they were quite as interesting to receive.

The half-hour I spent, cosily ensconced by his hands, and waited upon by his queer household, was perhaps the best I have ever known. He stood by the fireplace, looking down from his great height, with a wondering smile upon me. I declare that the loving kindness of his eyes, which he has wide, grey, and beautiful, warmed me as much as the pyramid of logs he had set burning on the hearth!

I took a good reckoning of the man, from under the gigantic collar, in which, I felt, my head rested like a little egg at the bottom of a warm nest. "And so," I thought, "here is the Light-keeper of Scarthey Island!" And I was obliged to confess that he was a more romantic-looking person than even in my wildest dreams I had pictured to myself—that in fact I had found out for the first time the man really approved of.

And I congratulated myself on my own cleverness—for it was evident that, just as I had suspected from RenÉ's reticent manner, even by him our existence at Pulwick had not been mentioned to "the master."

And as Mr. Landale was quite determined to avail himself of his brother's sauvagerie not to let him know anything about us, on his side, but for me we might have remained at and departed from Pulwick unknown to the head of the house! And what a pity that would have been!

Now, why did not Mr. Landale wish his brother to know? Did he think (as indeed has happened) that the Light-keeper would take too kindly to the Savenaye children? Or to one of them? If so, he will be bien attrappÉ, for there is no doubt that my sudden and dramatic arrival upon his especial domain has made an impression on him that no meeting prepared and discussed beforehand could have produced.

Adrian Landale may have been in love with our beautiful mamma in his boyish days, but now, Sir Adrian, the man is in love with the beautiful Molly!

That is positive.

I was a long time before I could go to sleep in the tower; it was too perfect to be in bed in such a place, safe and happy in the midst of the rage I could hear outside; to have seen the unknown, to have found him such as he is—to be under the Light!

What would have happened if my cousin had really been mad (and RenÉ his keeper, as that stupid country-side wit suggested in my ear the other night at dinner)? It would have been still more of an adventure of course, but not one which even "Murthering Moll the Second" can regret. Or if he had been a dirty, untidy hermit, as Madeleine thought? That would have spoilt all.

Thus in the owl's nest, as Mr. Landale (spiteful creature!) called it to Tanty, there lives not owl any more than lunatic. A polished gentleman, with white, exquisite hands, who, when he is discovered by the most unexpected of visitors, is shaven as smooth as Rupert himself; has the most unexceptionable of snowy linen and old-fashioned, it is true, but most well-fitting clothes.

As for the entertainment for the said casual visitor, not even Pulwick with all its resources (where housekeeping, between the fussy brother and the docile sister is a complicated science) could have produced more real comfort.

In the morning, when I woke late (it was broad daylight), feeling as if I had been beaten and passed through a mangle, for there was not an inch of my poor body that was not sore, I had not turned round and so given sign of life, before I heard a whisper outside my door; then comes a sturdy knock and in walks old Margery, still dignified as a queen's housekeeper, bearing a bowl of warm frothy milk.

And this being gratefully drunk by me, she gravely inquires, in her queer provincial accent, how I am this morn; and then goes to report to some anxious inquirer (whom?—I can easily guess) that with the exception of my cut foot I am very well.

Presently she returns and lights a blazing fire. Then in come my dress and linen and my one shoe, all cleaned, dried and mended, only my poor habit is so torn and so stiff that I have to put up with Margery's best striped skirt in lieu of it, till she has time to mend and wash it. As it is she must have been at work all night upon these repairs for me.

Again she goes out—for another consultation, I suppose—and comes back to find me half clad, hopping about the room; this time she has got nice white linen bandages and with them ties up my little foot, partly for the cuts, partly for want of a sandal, till it is twice the size of its companion. But I can walk on it.

Then my strange handmaid—who by the way is a droll, grumbling old soul, and orders me about as if she were still my nurse—dresses me and combs my hair, which will not yet awhile be rid of all its sand. And so, in due course, Molly emerges from her bower, as well tended almost as she might have been at Bath, except that Margery's striped skirt is a deal too short for her and she displays a little more of one very nice ankle and one gouty foot than fashion warrants.

And in this manner the guest goes to meet her host in the great room.

He was walking up and down as if impatiently expecting me, and when I hobbled in, he came forward with a smile on his face which, once more, I thought beautiful.

"God be praised!" he said, taking both my hands and kissing one of them, with his fine air of gallantry which was all the more delightful on account of his evident earnestness, "you seem none the worse for this terrible adventure. I dreaded this morning to hear that you were in a fever. You know," he added so seriously that I had to smile, "you might easily have had a fever from this yesterday's work; and what should we have done without doctor and medicines!"

"You have a good surgeon, at least," said I laughing and pointing at my swaddled extremity. He laughed too at the enmitouflage. "I tried to explain how it was to be done," he said, "but I think I could have managed it more neatly myself."

Then he helped me to the arm-chair, and RenÉ came in, and, after a profound bow (which did not preclude much staring and smiling at me afterwards), laid, on a dazzling tablecloth, a most tempting breakfast, explaining the while, in his odd English, "The bread is stale, for we bake only twice a month. But there are some cakes hot from the fire, some eggs, new laid last evening, some fresh milk, some tea. It was a happy thing I arrived yesterday for there was no more tea. The butter wants, but Mistress Margery will have some made to-morrow, so that the demoiselle will not leave without having tasted our Scarthey butter."

All the while Sir Adrian looked on with a sort of dreamy smile—a happy smile!

"Poor RenÉ!" he said, when the man had left the room, "one would think that you have brought to him almost as much joy as to me."

I wondered what Mr. Landale would have said had he through some magic glass been able to see this little feast. I never enjoyed a meal more. As for my host, he hardly touched anything, but, I could see, was all absorbed in the delight of looking at me; and this he showed quite openly in the most child-like manner.

Not one of the many fine gentlemen it has been my fate to meet in my six months' apprenticeship to the "great world," not cousin Rupert himself with all his elaborate politeness (and Rupert has de grandes maniÈres, as Tanty says), could have played the host with a more exquisite courtesy, and more true hospitality. So I thought, at least. Now and again, it is true, while his eyes were fixed on me, I would see how the soul behind them was away, far in the past, and then at a word, even at a movement, back it would come to me, with the tenderest softening I have ever seen upon a human face.

It was only at the end of breakfast that he suddenly adverted to the previous day.

"Of course," he said, hesitatingly, but keeping a frank gaze on mine, "you must have thought me demented when—when you first entered, yesterday."

Now, I had anticipated this apology as inevitable, and I was prepared to put him at his ease.

"I——? Not at all," I said quite gravely; and, seeing the puzzled expression that came upon his face, I hastened to add in lower tones: "I know I am very like my mother, and it was her name you called out upon seeing me." And then I stopped, as if that had explained everything.

He looked at me with a wondering air, and fell again into a muse. After a while he said, with his great simplicity which seems somehow in him the last touch of the most perfect breeding: "Yes, such an apparition was enough to unhinge any one's mind for the moment. You never knew her, child, and therefore never mourned her death. But we—that is, RenÉ and I, who tried so hard to save her—though it is so long ago, we have not forgotten."

It was then I asked him to tell me about the mother I had never known. At first it was as if he could not; he fell into a great silence, through which I could feel the working of his old sorrow. So then I said to him quickly, for I feared he thought me an indiscreet trespasser upon sacred ground, that he must remember my right to know more than the vague accounts I had been given of my mother's history.

"No one will tell me of her," I said. "It is hard, for I am her own daughter."

"It is wrong," he said very gently; "you ought to know, for you are indeed, most verily, her own daughter."

And then by fragments he tried to tell me a little of her beauty, her loving heart, her faithfulness and bravery. At first it was with great tripping sighs as if the words hurt him, but by and by it came easier, and with his eyes fixed wistfully on me he took me, as it were, by his side through all their marvellous adventures.

And thus I heard the stirring story of the "Savenaye band," and I felt prouder of my race than I had ever been before. Hitherto, being a Savenaye only meant the pride our aunt tried to instil into us of being undeniably biennÉes and connected with numbers of great families. But the tale of the deeds mine had done for the King's cause, and especially the achievements of my own mother in starting such an expedition after my father's death, and following its fortunes to the bitter end, made my blood tingle with a new emotion.

Little wonder that Sir Adrian should have devoted his life to her service. How madly enthralled I should have been, being a man, and free and strong, by the presence of a woman such as my mother. I, too, would have prostrated myself to worship her image returning to life—and I am that living, living portrait!

When he came to the story of her death, he hesitated and finally stopped. It must have been horrible. I could see it in his eyes, and I dared not press him.

Now, I suppose I am the only one in the world, besides RenÉ, who knows this man as he is. And I am proud of it.

And it is for this constancy, which no vulgar soul of them can understand, that Rupert and his class have dubbed the gallant gentleman a madman. It fills me with scorn of them. I do not yet know what love is, therefore of course I cannot fathom its grief; but this much I know—that if I loved and yet could not reach as high as ever love may reach both in joy and sorrow, I should despise myself. I, too, would draw the utmost from life that life can give.

He never even hinted at his love for my mother; speaking of himself throughout as RenÉ might, as of her humble devoted servant merely. And then the question began to gnaw at me. "Did she love him?" and somehow, I felt as if I could not rest till I knew; and I had it on my lips twenty times to cry out to him: "I know you loved her: oh! tell me, did she love you?" And yet I dared no more have done so, and overstepped the barrier of his gentle, reticent dignity, than I could have thrust the lighthouse tower down; and I could not think, either, whether I should be glad to hear that she had loved him, or that she had not. Not even here, alone with myself, can I answer that question.

But though I respect him because he is as I have found him, and understand how rare a personality it takes to achieve such refinement of faithfulness, it seems to me, that to teach this constant lover to forget the past in the present, would be something worth living for—something worthy of me!

Molly!—What is the meaning of this? You have never before put that thought in words, even to yourself! But let me be frank, or else what is the use of this diary?

Looking back to those delightful three days, did not the thought come to me, if not the words? Well, well, it is better, sometimes, I believe, to let oneself drift, than to try and guide the boat; and I must hurry back to Scarthey or I shall never have told my story....

How swiftly time had flown by us! I sitting in the arm-chair, with the old dog's muzzle on my lap, and Sir Adrian standing by his great chimney; the clock struck twelve, in the midst of the long silence, and I had thought that barely an hour had passed.

I got up, and, seeing me limp in my attempt to walk, Sir Adrian gave me his arm; and so we went round the great room bras dessus, bras dessous, and it already seemed quite natural to feel like an intimate friend in that queer dwelling.

We paused a long time in silence by the window, the tempest wind was still raging, but the sky was clear, and all round us was a wonderful sight; the sea, as far as eyes could reach, white with foam, lashed and tossing in frenzy round the rock on which we stood so safely, and rising in long jets of spray, which now and then dashed as far as our window; and when I looked down nearer, I could see the little stunted trees, bending backwards and forwards under the blast, and an odd idea came to my mind:—they looked to me when they caught my sight, as though they were bowing deep, hurriedly and frantically greeting me among them.

I glanced up at my silent companion, the true knight, and found his wide grey eyes fixed upon me with the same expression that was already familiar to me, which I had especially noted as he told me his long tale of olden times.

This time I felt the look go to my heart. And then the thought first came to my mind, all unformed, but still sweet.

I don't know exactly why, but in answer to his sad look, I smiled at him, without a word, upon which he suddenly grew pale. After a while he gave a sigh, and, as he drew my arm again through his, I fancy his hand trembled a little.

When he had taken me back to my chair, he walked to and fro in silence, looking at me ever and anon.

A long time we passed thus, without speaking; but it seemed as if our thoughts were intermixing in harmony in the midst of our silence. And then the spell was broken by RenÉ, who never came in without making me his great scrape, trying hard not to beam too obtrusively in the delight that evidently overtakes him whenever he sets eyes on me.

It was after a prolonged talk between him and the master, I fancy, concerning the means of attending fitly upon my noble and delicate person, that Sir Adrian, brought back, evidently, to the consideration of present affairs, began to be exercised about the best means of whiling away my time. When he hinted at the difficulty, I very soon disposed of it.

I told him I had never been so happy in my life before—that the hours went all too quickly—I told him there was so much he and RenÉ had yet to tell me of their wonderful adventures, that I thought I should have to carry them back to Pulwick with me. At the mention of Pulwick his brow darkened, and RenÉ turned away to cough into his hand, and I saw that I had gone too fast. (N.B.—Pulwick is evidently a sore subject; I am sure I am not surprised. I can conceive how Rupert and Sophia would drive a man of Sir Adrian's sensitiveness nearly to desperation. Yet I have brought Sir Adrian back to Pulwick, in spite of all. Is not that a feather in my cap?)

But to return; I next made RenÉ laugh aloud and Sir Adrian give his indulgent smile—such as a father might give to his child—by adding that when I was bored I would soon let them know. "I always do," I said, "for I consider that a duty to myself."

"God knows," said this strange man then, half smiling, "I would we could keep you here for ever."

It was almost a declaration, but his eyes were far off—it was not addressed to me.

I soon found that the recollection of all the extraordinary incidents Sir Adrian had lived through, is one neither of pride nor pleasure to him, but, all the same, never has anything in books seemed to me so stirring, as the tale of relentless fate, of ever-recurring battles and struggles and misfortunes told by the man who, still in the strength of life, has now chosen to forego everything that might for the remainder of his days have compensated him.

Willing as he was to humour me, however, and disproportionately anxious to amuse me, it was little more than the dry bones of his history, I was able to obtain from him.

With RenÉ's help, however, and my own lively imagination I have been able to piece together a very wonderful skeleton, from these same dry bones, and, moreover, endow it with flesh and blood and life.

RenÉ was very willing to descant upon his master's exploits, as far as he knew them: "Whew, Mademoiselle should have seen him fight!" he would say, "a lion, Mademoiselle, a real lion!"

And then I would contrast the reposeful, somewhat immobile countenance, the dreaming eye, the almost womanly softness of his smile, with the picture, and find the contrast piquant in the extreme.

Concerning his present home Sir Adrian was more willing to speak—I had told him how the light on the little island had fascinated me from the distance, and all the surmises I had made about it.

"And so, it was in order to see what sort of dungeon they kept the madman in," he said, laughing quietly, "that you pushed the reconnaissance, which nearly sent you into the jaws of death!"

I was so struck, at first, by his speaking of himself as the reputed "madman" that I could not answer. To think of him as serenely contemptuous of the world's imputation—and an imputation so galling as this one of being irresponsible for his actions—and deliberately continuing his even way without taking the trouble to refute it, has given me an insight into his nature, that fills me with admiration, and yet, at the same time, with a sort of longing to see him reinstated in his proper place, and casting out those slandering interlopers.

But, as he was waiting to be answered, I had to collect my thoughts and admit, not without a little bashfulness, that my first account of my exploit had contained a slight prevarication.

In all he has to say about his little Scarthey domain, about the existence he has made for himself there, I cannot help noticing with what affection he speaks of RenÉ. RenÉ, according to Sir Adrian, is everything and everywhere; a perfect familiar genius; he is counsellor as well as valet, plays his master's game of chess as well as shaves him, can tune his organ, and manage his boat, and cast his nets, for he is fisherman as well as gardener; he is the steward of this wonderful little estate, and its stock of one pony, one cow, and twelve hens; he tends the light, and can cook a dinner a great deal better than his great rival, old Margery.

Of this last accomplishment we had good proof in the shape of various dainties that appeared at our dinner. For when I exclaimed in astonishment, the master said, well pleased, and pointing to the attentive major-domo: "This is RenÉ's way of spoiling me. But now he has surpassed himself to celebrate so unique an occasion."

And RenÉ's face was all one grin of rapture. I observe that on occasions his eyes wander quite tenderly from me to his master.

Shall I ever enjoy dinners again like those in that old ruined tower! Or hours like those during which I listened to tales of peril and adventure, or to the music that pealed forth from the distant corner, when Sir Adrian sat down to his organ and made it speak the wordless language of the soul: that language that made me at times shiver with a mad yearning for life, more life; at times soothed my heart with a caress of infinite softness.

How is it that our organ-songs at the convent never moved me in this fashion?

Ah! those will be days to remember; all the more for being certain that they will not be forgotten by him. Yes, those days have brought some light into his melancholy life.

Even RenÉ knows that. "Oh, my lady," said he to me as he was leaving the island yesterday. "You have come like the good fairy, you have brought back the joy of life to his honour: I have not heard him really laugh—before this year passed I did not believe he knew any more how to laugh—what you can call laugh!"

It is quite true. I had made some droll remark about Tanty and Cousin Sophia, and when he laughed he looked like a young man.

He was quick enough in grasping at a pretext for keeping me yet another day. Yesterday the wind having suddenly abated in the night, there was quite a bevy of little fishing-boats sailing merrily away. And the causeway at low water was quite visible. As we looked out I know the same idea came to both our minds, though there was no word between us. At last it was I who spoke. "The crossing is quite safe," said I. And I added, as he answered nothing, "I almost wish now it was not. How quick the time has gone by, here!"

His countenance when I looked up was darker. He kept his eyes fixed in the distance. At last he said in a low voice:

"Yes, I suppose it is high time you should go back."

"I am sure I don't wish it," I said quite frankly—he is not the sort of man with whom one would ever think of minauderie, "but Madeleine will be miserable about me."

"And so you would really care to stop here," said he, with a smile of wonder on his face, "if it were not for that reason?"

"Naturally I would," said I. "I feel already as cosy as a tame cat here. And if it were not for Madeleine, poor little Madeleine, who must be breaking her heart!—But then how can I go back?—I have no wraps and only one shoe?"

His face had cleared again. He was walking up and down in his usual way, whilst I hopped back, with more limping than was at all necessary, to my favourite arm-chair.

"True, true," he said, as if speaking to himself, "you cannot walk, with one shoe and a bandaged foot. And your clothes are too thin for the roundabout sea journey in this cold wind. This is what we shall do, child," he went on, coming up to me with a sage expression that struggled with his evident eager desire. "RenÉ shall go off, as soon as the tide permits, carrying the good news of your safety to your sister, and bring back some warm things for you to wear to-morrow morning, and I shall write to Rupert to send a carriage, to wait for you on the strand."

And so, pleased like two children who have found a means of securing a further holiday, we wrote both our letters. I wonder whether it occurred to Sir Adrian, as it did to me, that, if we had been so very anxious that I should be restored to the care of Pulwick with the briefest delay, I might have gone with RenÉ that same day, wrapped up in a certain cloak which had done good warming service already; and that, as RenÉ had constructed with his cunning hands a sufficient if not very pretty sandal for my damaged foot out of some old piece of felt, I might have walked from the beach to the fishing village; and that there, no doubt, a cart or a donkey might have conveyed me home in triumph.

Perhaps it did not occur to him; and certainly I had no desire to suggest it on my side.

Thus, soon after mid-day, Master RenÉ departed alone. And Sir Adrian and I, both very glad of our reprieve, watched, leaning side by side upon the window-sill, the brave little craft glide away on the still ruffled waters, until, when it had grown very small in the distance, we saw the sail lowered and knew RenÉ had reached mainland.

And that was perhaps the best day of the three. RenÉ having been unexpectedly despatched, we had to help to do everything ourselves with old Margery, who is rather feeble. The sky was clear and beautiful; and, followed gravely by Jem the dog, we went round the little outer domain. I fed the hens, and Sir Adrian carried the pail when Margery had milked the cow; we paid a visit in his wide paddock to the pony, who trotted up to his master whinnying with pleasure. We looked at the waters rushing past like a mill race on the further side of the island, as the tide was rising, and he explained to me that it was this rush which makes the neighbourhood of Scarthey so dangerous to unwary crafts; we went down into the sea-caves which penetrate deep under the ruins.—They say that in olden days there was a passage under the rocky causeway that led as far as the old Priory, but all traces of it have been effaced.

Then, later on, Sir Adrian showed me in detail his library.

"I was made to be a man of books," he said, when I wondered at the number he had accumulated around him—there must be thousands, "a man of study, not of action. And you know how fate has treated me. These have been my one consolation of late years."

And it marvelled me to think that one who had achieved so many manly deeds, should love musty old tiresome things so much. He really turned them over quite reverentially. I myself do not think much of books as companions.

When I made that little confession he smiled rather sadly, and said that one like me never would lack the suitable companions of youth and happiness; but that a creature of his unfortunate disposition could find, in these long rows of folded leaves, the society of the best and the loftiest minds, not of our age, but of all ages, and, what was more, could find them ready for intercourse and at their best humour, just in those hours when he himself was fit and disposed for such intercourse—and this without dread of inflicting his own misery and dulness upon them.

But I could not agree with his appreciation. I felt my nose curl with disdain at the breath of dust and must and age these old tomes gave forth, and I said again it was, to my mind, but a poor and tame sort of fellowship.

He was perched on his ladder and had some odd volume in his hand, from which he was about to give an example in point; on hearing, however, this uncongenial sentiment he pushed back the book and came down quickly enough to talk to me. And this was the last of our excursions among the bookshelves.

Of this I was glad, for I confess it was there I liked Sir Adrian the least.

When the end of the short day drew near it was time to go and attend to the beacon. We ascended the ladder-like wooden stairs leading to the platform. Then I had the reverse of that view that for so many days had engrossed my interest.

Pulwick from Scarthey!... What a long time it seemed then since I had left those rooms the windows of which now sent us back the rays of the setting sun! and I had no desire to return, though return I must on the morrow.

RenÉ, of course, had left everything in his usual trim order, so all we had to do was to see to the lamp. It pleased my fantasy to light the beacon of Scarthey myself, and I struck the steel and kindled the brimstone and set fire to the huge, ill-smelling wicks until they gave a flame as big as my hand; and "there is the light of Scarthey at close quarters," I thought. And the Light-keeper was bending over me with his kindly look, humouring me like a child.

As we sat there silently for a while in the twilight, there came from the little room adjoining the turret an odd sound of flapping and uncanny, melancholy cries. Sir Adrian rose, and we remembered the seagull by which he had played the part of good Samaritan.

It had happened on the second day, as the storm was at its height. There had come a great crash at the window, and we saw something white that struggled on the sill outside; Sir Adrian opened the casement (when we had a little tornado of our own inside, and all his papers began dancing a sarabande in the room), and we gathered in the poor creature that was hurt and battered and more than half stunned, opening alternately its yellow bill and its red eyes in the most absurd manner.

With a solicitude that it amused me to watch, Sir Adrian had tended the helpless, goose-like thing and then handed it to RenÉ's further care.

RenÉ, it seemed, had thought of trying to tame the wild bird, and had constructed a huge sort of cage with laths and barrel-hoops, and installed it there with various nasty, sea-fishy, weedy things, such as seagulls consider dainty. But the prisoner, now its vigour had returned, yearned for nothing but the free air, and ever and anon almost broke its wings in sudden frenzy to escape.

"I wonder at RenÉ," said Sir Adrian, contemplating the animal with his grave look of commiseration; "RenÉ, who, like myself, has been a prisoner! He will be disappointed, but we shall make one of God's creatures happy this day. There is not overmuch happiness in this world."

And, regardless of the vicious pecks aimed at his hands, he with firmness folded the great strong wings and legs and carried the gull outside on the parapet.

There the bird sat a moment, astonished, turning its head round at its benefactor before taking wing; and then it rose flying away in great swoops—flap, flap—across the waves till we could see it no longer. Ugly and awkward as the creature looked in its cage, it was beautiful in its joyful, steady flight, and I was glad to see it go. I must have been a bird myself in another existence, for I have often that longing to fly upon me, and it makes my heart swell with a great impatience that I cannot.

But I could not help remarking to Sir Adrian that the bird's last look round had been full of anger rather than gratitude, and his answer, as he watched it sweep heavily away, was too gloomy to please me:

"Gratitude," said he, "is as rare as unselfishness. If it were not so this world would be different indeed. As it is, we have no more right to expect the one than the other. And, when all is said and done, if doing a so-called kind action gives us pleasure, it is only a special form of self-indulgence."

There is something wrong about a reasoning of this kind, but I could not exactly point out where.

We both stood gazing out from our platform upon the darkening waters. Then across our vision there crept, round the promontory, a beautiful ship with all sails set, looking like some gigantic white bird; sailing, sailing, so swiftly yet so surely by, through the dim light; and I cried out in admiration: for there is something in the sight of a ship silently gliding that always sets my heart beating. But Sir Adrian's face grew stern, and he said: "A ship is a whitened sepulchre."

But for all that he looked at it long and pensively.

Now it had struck me before this that Sir Adrian, with all his kindness of heart, takes but a dismal view of human nature and human destiny; that to him what spoils the face of this world is that strife of life—which to me is as the breath of my nostrils, the absence of which made my convent days so grey and hateful to look back upon.

I did not like to feel out of harmony with him, and so almost angrily I reproached him.

"Would you have every one live like a limpet on a rock?" cried I. "Great heavens! I would rather be dead than not be up and doing."

He looked at me gravely, pityingly.

"May you never see what I have seen," said he. "May you never learn what men have made of the world. God keep your fair life from such ways as mine has been made to follow."

The words filled me, I don't know why, with sudden misgiving. Is this life, I am so eager for, but horror and misery after all? Would it be better to leave the book unopened? They said so at the convent. But what can they know of life at a convent?

He bent his kind face towards mine in the thickening gloom, as though to read my thoughts, and his lips moved, but he did not speak aloud. Then, above the song of the waves as they gathered, rolled in, and fell upon the shingle all around, there came the beat of oars.

"Hark," said Sir Adrian, "our good RenÉ!"

His tone was cheerful again, and, as he hurried me away down the stairs, I knew he was glad to divert me from the melancholy into which he had allowed himself to drift.

And then "good RenÉ" came, bringing breezy life and cheerfulness with him, and a bundle and a letter for me.

Poor Madeleine! It seems she has been quite ill with weeping for Molly; and, indeed, her dear scrawl was so illegible that I could hardly read it. RenÉ says she was nearly as much upset by the joy as by the grief. Mr. Landale was not at home; he had ridden to meet Tanty at Liverpool, for the dear old lady has been summoned back in hot haste with the news of my decease!

He for one, I thought to myself, will survive the shock of relief at learning that Molly has risen from the dead!

Ting, ting, ting.... There goes my little clock, fussily counting the hour to tell me that I have written so long a time that I ought to be tired. And so I am, though I have not told you half of all I meant to tell!