CHAPTER XII
A SOUL ALONE ON THE SEA-SHORE
THE little village of Eastworld is set on a low headland by the sea, remote from towns and any haunt of men. The white cottages of the fisherfolk, an inn, the church, and a low range of coast-guard buildings, are the only buildings there. Below the headland there are miles upon miles of utterly lonely sands which edge the sea in a great yellow scimitar as far as the eye can carry, from east to west.
Hardly any human footsteps ever disturb the vast virgin smoothness of the sands, for the fisherfolk sail up the mouth of a sluggish tidal river to reach the village. All day long the melancholy sea-birds call to each other over the wastes, and away on the sky-line, or so it seems to any one walking upon the sands, the great white breakers roll and boom for ever.
Over the flat expanses the tide, with no obstacle to slacken or impede its progress, rushes with furious haste — as fast, so the fisherfolks tell, as a good horse in full gallop.
It was the beginning of the winter afternoon on the day after Gortre had visited Eastworld.
There was little wind, but the sky hung low in cold and menacing clouds, ineffably cheerless and gloomy.
A single figure moved slowly through these forbidding solitudes. It was Gertrude Hunt. She wore a simple coat and skirt of grey tweed, a tam-o'-shanter cap of crimson wool, and carried a walking cane.
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