“That is the moor yonder, Harry, over which I first came to Gethin—­how long ago!”

“Has the time, then, hung so very heavy on your hands?” asked she, seriously.

“No, Harry, no; on the contrary, I have never been so happy; but when one has a new experience, however charming it may be, it seems to dwindle down one’s past to nothing.  I have had two lifetimes, as it seems to me—­one elsewhere, and one here; and yet it is but six weeks since I met you first, Harry, out yonder, gleaming like a sunbeam through the fog.”

“I remember it well,” said Harry, with a slight shiver.

“But not to sigh about it, dear, I trust?  You are not afraid of me now, as you were then?  Do you recollect how scared you were when I called you back that day?”

“Yes, well,” answered the young girl, earnestly.  “I had a reason for being scared, though you would laugh at me if I told you what it was.”

“Do I ever laugh at you, Harry, when you would have me serious?” asked Richard, reproachfully.  “Come, tell me why you shrank from me—­as you can not to-day, dear, for, see, I have got you close—­and why your large eyes looked so wild and strange that I half thought you mad?  Did you take me for a ghost?”

“No; but I had just seen what is far worse than any ghost.  Did you not mark how pale I got that same night?  I thought I should have fainted when I was asked” (it was Solomon who had put the question, but Solomon’s name was never mentioned between these two young people) “if I had ever seen a spectre ship.  I had seen one that very day—­only a few minutes before I met you—­and on this very cliff.”

“Well, and what then?” said Richard, smiling.  “Neither your father, nor any one in whom you have an interest, goes to sea.  The Flying Dutchman did not concern you, I reckon, even if he did pay you a call.”

“You do not understand,” said Harry, seriously; “it was not that at all.  But when the mists rise over Turlock sands, as they did that day, a black, square-rigged vessel glides across them, which bodes ill to those who see her; and I saw her as plain as I see you.”

“But not so near,” said Richard, fondly.

“She was coming from Turlock to the quarry yonder—­”

“To fetch slates,” interrupted the other—­“nothing more likely.”

“Nay, not she; no craft would have attempted that in such weather; and, besides, there was not a soul on board of her.  She was sailing against what little wind there was, and against the tide.”

“But even if this was so, Harry, what of it?  What harm has come of it?”

“Nothing as yet; nor was I greatly frightened at the time.  That omen bodes unhappiness to him or her who sees it, and I was already unhappy.”

“Because I was not here to comfort you, Harry.  Well, that is remedied.”

She shook her head, and did not return the reassuring pressure of his hand.  “Listen!” she said.  “This misery comes through the person whom he who has seen the vision shall next meet; and I thought I knew who I should meet on my way home—­one from whom”—­she sank her voice to a whisper—­“I already expected misery.”