However, the wind is blowing dull and hollow from south-west; the clouds are rolling faster and faster up from the Atlantic; the sky to westward is brassy green; the glass is falling fast; and there will be wind and rain enough to-night to sweep even Aberalva clean for the next week.

Grace Harvey sees the coming storm, as she goes slowly homewards, dismissing her little flock; and she lingers long and sadly outside her cottage door, looking out over the fast blackening sea, and listening to the hollow thunder of the groundswell, against the back of the point which shelters Aberalva Cove.

Far away on the horizon, the masts of stately ships stand out against the sky, driving fast to the eastward with shortened sail.  They, too, know what is coming; and Grace prays for them as she stands, in her wild way, with half outspoken words.

“All those gallant ships, dear Lord! and so many beautiful men in them, and so few of them ready to die; and all those gallant soldiers going to the war;—­Lord, wilt thou not have mercy?  Spare them for a little time before—.  Is not that cruel, man-devouring sea full enough, Lord; and brave men’s bones enough, strewn up and down all rocks and sands?  And is not that dark place full enough, O Lord, of poor souls cut off in a moment, as my two were?  Oh, not to-night, dear Lord!  Do not call any one to-night—­give them a day more, one chance more, poor fellows—­they have had so few, and so many temptations, and, perhaps, no schooling.  They go to sea so early, and young things will be young things, Lord.  Spare them but one night more—­and yet He did not spare my two—­they had no time to repent, and have no time for ever, evermore!”

And she stands looking out over the sea; but she has lost sight of everything, save her own sad imaginations.  Her eyes open wider and wider, as if before some unseen horror; the eyebrows contract upwards; the cheeks sharpen; the mouth parts; the lips draw back, showing the white teeth, as if in intensest agony.  Thus she stands long, motionless, awe-frozen, save when a shudder runs through every limb, with such a countenance as that “fair terror” of which Shelley sang—­

  “Its horror and its beauty are divine;
  Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie
  Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine,
  Fiery and lucid, struggling underneath,
  The agonies of anguish and of death.”

Her mother comes out from the cottage door behind, and lays her hand upon the girl’s shoulder.  The spell is broken; and hiding her face in her hands, Grace bursts into violent weeping.

“What are you doing, my poor child, here in the cold night air?”

“My two, mother, my two!” said she; “and all the poor souls at sea to-night!”

“You mustn’t think of it.  Haven’t I told you not to think of it?  One would lose one’s wits if one did too often.”

“If it is all true, mother, what else is there worth thinking of in heaven or earth?”