Well, there was no laughing at the joke just then, for the girl burst into tears, and in the midst of that she hastily pressed his hand and hurried away.  He watched her go round the rocks, to the cleft leading down to the harbor.  There she was rejoined by her sister, and the two of them went slowly along the path of broken slate, with the green hill above, the blue water below, and the fair sunshine all around them.  Many a time he recalled afterward—­and always with an increasing weight at his heart—­how sombre seemed to him that bright October day and the picturesque opening of the coast leading in to Eglosilyan.  For it was the last glimpse of Wenna Rosewarne that he was to have for many a day, and a sadder picture was never treasured up in a man’s memory.

“Oh, Wenna, what have you said to him that you tremble so?” Mabyn asked.

“I have bid him good-bye—­that is all.”

“Not for always?”

“Yes, for always.”

“And he is going away again, then?”

“Yes, as a young man should.  Why should he stop here to make himself wretched over impossible fancies?  He will go out into the world, and he has splendid health and spirits, and he will forget all this.”

“And you—­you are anxious to forget it all too?”

“Would it not be better?  What good can come of dreaming?  Well, I have plenty of work to do:  that is well.”

Mabyn was very much inclined to cry:  all her beautiful visions of the future happiness of her sister had been rudely dispelled—­all her schemes and machinations had gone for nothing.  There only remained to her, in the way of consolation, the fact that Wenna still wore the sapphire ring that Harry Trelyon had sent her.

“And what will his mother think of you?” said Mabyn as a last argument, “when she finds you have sent him away altogether—­to go into the army and go abroad, and perhaps die of yellow fever, or be shot by the Sepoys or Caffres?”

“She would have hated me if I had married him,” said Wenna simply.

“Oh, Wenna, how dare you say such a thing?” Mabyn cried.  “What do you mean by it?”

“Would a lady in her position like her only son to marry the daughter of an innkeeper?” Wenna asked rather indifferently:  indeed, her thoughts were elsewhere.

“I tell you there’s no one in the world she loves like you—­I can see it every time she comes down for you—­and she believes, and I believe too, that you have changed Mr. Trelyon’s way of talking and his manner of treating people in such a fashion as no one would have considered possible.  Do you think she hasn’t eyes?  He is scarcely ever impertinent now:  when he is it is always in good-nature and never in sulkiness.  Look at his kindness to Mr. Trewhella’s granddaughter, and Mr. Trewhella a clergyman too!  Did he ever use to take his mother out for a drive?  No, never.  And of course she knows whom it is all owing to; and if you would marry Mr. Trelyon, Wenna, I believe she would worship you and think nothing good enough for you.”