of her mother so bitter; and perhaps Charles would answer hotly, and perhaps cause estrangement till death.  There had obviously been no alarm about her at St Maria’s, or somebody would have sailed across to inquire for her.  She had, in a letter written at the beginning of the week, spoken of the hour at which she intended to leave her country schoolhouse; and from this her friends had probably perceived that by such timing she would run a risk of losing the Saturday boat.  She had missed it, and as a consequence sat here on the shore as Mrs Charles Stow.

This brought her to the present, and she turned from the outline of St Michael’s Mount to look about for her husband’s form.  He was, as far as she could discover, no longer in the sea.  Then he was dressing.  By moving a few steps she could see where his clothes lay.  But Charles was not beside them.

Baptista looked back again at the water in bewilderment, as if her senses were the victim of some sleight of hand.  Not a speck or spot resembling a man’s head or face showed anywhere.  By this time she was alarmed, and her alarm intensified when she perceived a little beyond the scene of her husband’s bathing a small area of water, the quality of whose surface differed from that of the surrounding expanse as the coarse vegetation of some foul patch in a mead differs from the fine green of the remainder.  Elsewhere it looked flexuous, here it looked vermiculated and lumpy, and her marine experiences suggested to her in a moment that two currents met and caused a turmoil at this place.

She descended as hastily as her trembling limbs would allow.  The way down was terribly long, and before reaching the heap of clothes it occurred to her that, after all, it would be best to run first for help.  Hastening along in a lateral direction she proceeded inland till she met a man, and soon afterwards two others.  To them she exclaimed, ’I think a gentleman who was bathing is in some danger.  I cannot see him as I could.  Will you please run and help him, at once, if you will be so kind?’

She did not think of turning to show them the exact spot, indicating it vaguely by the direction of her hand, and still going on her way with the idea of gaining more assistance.  When she deemed, in her faintness, that she had carried the alarm far enough, she faced about and dragged herself back again.  Before reaching the now dreaded spot she met one of the men.

‘We can see nothing at all, Miss,’ he declared.

Having gained the beach, she found the tide in, and no sign of Charley’s clothes.  The other men whom she had besought to come had disappeared, it must have been in some other direction, for she had not met them going away.  They, finding nothing, had probably thought her alarm a mere conjecture, and given up the quest.

Baptista sank down upon the stones near at hand.  Where Charley had undressed was now sea.  There could not be the least doubt that he was drowned, and his body sucked under by the current; while his clothes, lying within high-water mark, had probably been carried away by the rising tide.