Wingrave stood perfectly motionless, with his eyes fixed upon the horizon.  Minute after minute passed, and he showed no signs of moving.  Aynesworth found himself presently engaged in watching him.  Thoughts must be passing through his brain.  He wondered what they were.  It was here that he had spent his boyhood; barely an hour ago the two men had stood before the picture of his father.  It was here, if anywhere, that he might regain some part of his older and more natural self.  Was it a struggle, he wondered, that was going on within the man?  There were no signs of it in his face.  Simply he stood and looked, and looked, as though, by infinite perseverance, the very horizon itself might recede, and the thing for which he sought become revealed . . . .

Aynesworth turned away at last, and there, not many yards behind, apparently watching them, stood the child.  He waved his hand and advanced towards her.  Her eyes were fixed upon Wingrave half fearfully.

“I am afraid of the other gentleman,” she whispered, as he reached her side.  “Will you come a little way with me?  I will show you a seagull’s nest.”

They left Wingrave where he was, and went hand in hand, along the cliff side.  She was a curious mixture or shyness and courage.  She talked very little, but she gripped her companion’s fingers tightly.

“I can show you,” she said, “where the seagulls build, and I can tell you the very spot in the sea where the sun goes down night after night.

“There are some baby seagulls in one of the nests, but I daren’t go very near for the mother bird is so strong.  Father used to say that when they have their baby birds to look after, they are as fierce as eagles.”

“Your father used to walk with you here, Juliet?” Aynesworth asked.

“Always till the last few months when he got weaker and weaker,” she answered.  “Since then I come every day alone.”

“Don’t you find it lonely?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“At first,” she answered, “not now.  It makes me unhappy.  Would you like to go down on the beach and look for shells?  I can find you some very pretty ones.”

They clambered down and wandered hand in hand by the seashore.  She told him quaint little stories of the smugglers, of wrecks, and the legends of the fisher people.  Coming back along the sands, she clung to his arm and grew more silent.  Her eyes sought his every now and then, wistfully.  Presently she pointed out a tiny whitewashed cottage standing by itself on a piece of waste ground.

“That is where I live now, at least for a day or two,” she said.  “They cannot keep me any longer.  When are you going away?”

“Very soon, I am afraid, little girl,” he answered.  “I will come and see you, though, before I go.”

“You promise,” she said solemnly.

“I promise,” Aynesworth repeated.

Then she held up her face, a little timidly, and he kissed her.  Afterwards, he watched her turn with slow, reluctant footsteps to the unpromising abode which she had pointed out.  Aynesworth made his way to the inn, cursing his impecuniosity and Wingrave’s brutal indifference.