high ridge of the sea dyke, and the grim massive
circle of a martello tower, reared high on its
mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all
that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of
sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven—
blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of
the great inland marsh— and turned its little
gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the
eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed
noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer
still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak
water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden;
with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of
decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting vessels
deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of
waves was heard on the beach; no trickling of
waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream.
Now and then, the cry of a sea-bird rose from the
region of the marsh; and, at intervals, from
farm-houses far in the inland waste, the faint winding
of horns to call the cattle home, travelled
mournfully through the evening calm.

Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's
arm, and led the way to the mound of the
martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said.
"Let us stop and rest here."

She seated herself on the slope, and resting
on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and
scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass
growing under her hand. After silently
occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she
turned suddenly on Captain Wragge, "Do I
surprise you?" she asked, with a startling
abruptness. "Do you find me changed?"

The captain's ready tact warned him that the
time had come to be plain with her, and to
reserve his flowers of speech for a more
appropriate occasion.

"If you ask the question, I must answer it,"
he replied. "Yes: I do find you changed."

She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I
suppose you can guess the reason?" she said.

The captain was wisely silent. He only
answered by a bow.

"I have lost all care for myself," she went on,
tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass.
"Saying that, is not saying much, perhaps but
it may help you to understand me. There are
things I would have died sooner than do, at one
time— things it would have turned me cold to
think of. I don't care now, whether I do them
or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more
interested in myself than I am in these handfuls
of grass. I suppose I have lost something.
What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know.
Do you? What nonsense I am talking! Who
cares what I have lost? It has gone: and there's
an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best
side of me— and that's left at any rate. I have
not lost my good looks, have I? There! there!
never mind answering; don't trouble yourself
to pay me compliments. I have been admired
enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr.
Noel Vanstone— enough for any woman's vanity
surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman?
Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my
teens. Oh me, I feel as if I was forty!" She
scattered the last fragments of grass to the
winds; and, turning her back on the captain, let
her head droop till her cheek touched the turf
bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said,
nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible
to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth!
The only mother I have left!"

Captain Wragge looked at her in silent
surprise. Such experience of humanity as he
possessed, was powerless to sound to its depths the
terrible self-abandonment which had burst its
way to the surface in her reckless words— which
was now fast hurrying her to actions more
reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to
himself uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned
her brain?" He considered for a minute longer,
and then spoke to her. "Leave it till
to-morrow," suggested the captain, confidentially.
"You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my
dear girl— no hurry."

She raised her head instantly, and looked
round at him, with the same angry resolution,
with the same desperate defiance of herself,
which he had seen in her face, on the memorable
day at York when she had acted before him for
the first time. "I came here to tell you what is
in my mind," she said; "and I will tell it!"
She seated herself upright on the slope; and
clasping her hands round her knees, looked out
steadily, straight before her, at the slowly
darkening view. In that strange position, she waited
until she had composed herself; and then
addressed the captain, without turning her head
to look round at him, in these words:

"When you and I first met," she began
abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to
myself. I know enough, by this time, to know
that I failed. When I first told you at York
that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe
you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was
determined not to submit to it. Whether you
guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with
that determination in my mind; and I feel it in
me now, stronger, ten times stronger, than
ever."

"Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the
captain. "Exactly so— the natural result of
firmness of character."

"No. The natural result of having nothing
else to think of. I had something else to think
of, before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk.
I have nothing else to think of now. Remember
that if you find me, for the future, always
harping on the same string. One question first. Did
you guess what I meant to do, on that morximg
when you showed me the newspaper, and when I
read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?"

"Generally," replied Captain Wragge— "I
guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping
your hand into his purse, and taking from it
(most properly) what was your own. I felt
deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting
me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with