bear to tell it. So I shall not speak more of that terrible blow, only to say that sorrow, so far from casting my body down, as one might have expected, gave it strength, and I rose up from the mattress where I had been lying. They tried to stop me, and even to hold me back, but for all I was so weak I pushed them aside, and must needs fling a blanket round me and away back to the beach.
The morning was breaking as I left the Why Not—for 'twas in no other place but that I lay—and the wind, though still high, had abated. There were light clouds crossing the heaven very swiftly, and between them patches of clear sky where the stars were growing paler before the dawn. The stars were growing paler; but there was another star that shone out from the Manor woods above the village, although I could not see the house, and told me Grace, like the wise virgins, kept her lamp alight all night. Yet even that light shone without lustre for me then, for my heart was too full to think of anything but of him who had laid down his life for mine, and of the strong, kind heart that was stilled for ever.
'Twas well I knew the way, so sure of old, from Why Not to beach, for I took no heed to path or feet, but plunged along in the morning dusk, blind with sorrow and weariness of spirit. There was a fire of driftwood burning at the back of the beach, and round it crouched a group of men in reefing jackets and sou'westers, waiting for morning to save what they might from the wreck; but I gave them a wide berth, and so passed in the darkness without a word, and came to the top of the beach. There was light enough to make out what was
