with weary eyes that still looked over the sea,
and still saw nothing.

"Oh, do speak to me!" said Mrs. Wragge.

Magdalen started, and looked about her
vacantly.

"It's late," she said, shivering under the first
sensation that reached her of the rising breeze.
"Come home; you want your tea."

They walked home in silence.

"Don't be angry with me for asking," said
Mrs. Wragge, as they sat together at the tea-
table. "Are you troubled, my dear, in your
mind ?"

"Yes," replied Magdalen. " Don't notice me.
My trouble will soon be over."

She waited patiently until Mrs. Wragge had
made an end of the meal, and then went up-
stairs to her own room.

"Monday!" she said, as she sat down at her
toilette-table. "Something may happen before
Monday comes!"

Her fingers wandered mechanically among the
brushes and combs, the tiny bottles and cases
placed on the table. She set them in order, now
in one way, and now in another — then on a sudden
pushed them away from her in a heap. For a minute
or two her hands remained idle. That interval
passed, they grew restless again, and pulled the
two little drawers in the table backwards and
forwards in their grooves. Among the trifles
laid in one of them was a Prayer-Book, which
had belonged to her at Combe-Raven, and which
she had saved with her other relics of the past,
when she and her sister had taken their farewell
of home. She opened the Prayer-Book, after
a long hesitation, at the Marriage Service — shut
it again, before she had read a line — and put it
back hurriedly in one of the drawers. After
turning the key in the lock, she rose, and walked
to the window.

"The horrible sea!" she said, turning from it
with a shudder of disgust. " The lonely, dreary,
horrible sea!"

She went back to the drawer, and took the
Prayer-Book out for the second time; half-
opened it again at the Marriage Service; and
impatiently threw it back into the drawer. This
time, after turning the lock, she took the key
away — walked with it in her hand to the open
window — and threw it violently from her into the
garden. It fell on a bed thickly planted with
flowers. It was invisible: it was lost. The
sense of its loss seemed to relieve her.

"Something may happen on Friday;
something may happen on Saturday; something may
happen on Sunday. Three days still!"

She closed the green shutters outside the
window, and drew the curtains, to darken the
room still more. Her head felt heavy; her eyes
were burning hot. She threw herself on her bed,
with a sullen impulse to sleep away the time.

The quiet of the house helped her, the darkness
of the room helped her; the stupor of mind
into which she had fallen had its effect on her
senses: she dropped into a broken sleep. Her
restless hands moved incessantly; her head tossed
from side to side of the pillow — but still she
slept. Ere long, words fell by ones and twos
from her lips; words whispered in her sleep,
growing more and more continuous, more and
more articulate, the longer the sleep lasted;
words which seemed to calm her restlessness, and
to hush her into deeper repose. She smiled;
she was in the happy land of dreams — Frank's
name escaped her. "Do you love me, Frank?"
she whispered. "Oh, my darling, say it again!
say it again!"

The time passed, the room grew darker; and
still she slumbered and dreamed. Towards sunset
— without any noise inside the house or out
to account for it — she started up on the bed,
awake again in an instant. The drowsy
obscurity of the room struck her with terror. She
ran to the window, pushed open the shutters,
and leaned far out into the evening air and the
evening light. Her eyes devoured the trivial
sights on the beach; her ears drank in the
welcome murmur of the sea. Anything to deliver
her from the waking impressions which her
dreams had left! No more darkness; no more
repose. Sleep that came mercifully to others,
came treacherously to her. Sleep had only closed
her eyes on the future, to open them on the past.

She went down again into the parlour, eager
to talk no matter how idly, no matter on what
trifles. The room was empty. Perhaps Mrs.
Wragge had gone to her work — perhaps, she was
too tired to talk. Magdalen took her hat from
the table, and went out. The sea that she had
shrunk from, a few hours since, looked friendly
now. How lovely it was in its cool evening
blue! What a godlike joy in the happy multitude
of waves, leaping up to the light of
Heaven!

She stayed out, until the night fell and the stars
appeared. The night steadied her.

By slow degrees, her mind recovered its balance,
and she looked her position unflinchingly in
the face. The vain hope that accident might
defeat the very end for which, of her own free
will, she had ceaselessly plotted and toiled,
vanished and left her; self-dissipated in its own
weakness. She knew the true alternative, and
faced it. On one side was the revolting ordeal
of the marriage — on the other, the abandonment
of her purpose. Was it too late to choose
between the sacrifice of the purpose, and the sacrifice
of herself? Yes! too late. The backward path
had closed behind her. Time that no wish could
change, Time that no prayers could recal, had
made her purpose a part of herself: once she
had governed it; now it governed her. The more
she shrank, the harder she struggled, the more
mercilessly it drove her on. No other feeling in
her was strong enough to master it — not even
the horror that was maddening her; the horror
of her marriage.

Towards nine o'clock she went back to the
house.

"Walking again!" said Mrs. Wragge,