There was a click of the gate, and she flung round from the wall, dry-eyed, dry-lipped, desperate, as her aunt hurriedly rose.

“It’s him—­Sir Walter, Leonie—­are you going to accept him?”

“Of course,” came the steady reply, and Leonie looked the elder woman straight in the eyes, which darted this, that, and every way.  “Will you go upstairs, please.”

* * * * * * * *

Just before dawn Leonie slid in through the window, and the water, trickling from the bathing dress which clung to the wonderful figure, formed little pools on the faded carpet.

“Nothing will ever make me clean,” she whispered, “nothing—­nothing—­nothing.  There is no ocean big or wide or deep enough for that, oh!  God—­my God!”

For five long minutes she stood absolutely still, looking straight and unseeingly at the mantelpiece.

Then as a rooster somewhere shrilly heralded the coming day she awoke to her surroundings and moved.

Like a beaten dog she crept to her bedroom, and stood staring at the reflection of her haggard face in the mirror.  A bird suddenly burst into a song of welcome to the dawn which was dyeing the sky rose pink, and she crossed to the window-seat, dropped to her knees, and buried her lovely head in her outstretched arms, amid the ruins of her beautiful Castle of Dreams.

CHAPTER XVI

  “For Fate has wove the thread of life with pain!”—­Pope.

When empty Rockham is a haven of delight, whether the little connecting coves be awash with the tide, or the limpets, in an unglued state, are airing themselves awaiting the return of the water.

You can wander at will, if you have the right boots on, over the never-ending sharp ridges of the rocks; you can pass hours gathering laver, though it is not at its best just there; and you can find sea-anemones and such treasure-trove as pit props, and boxes of butter, yea! and even casks of wine after a storm if the gods be kind to you.

Also you can don your bathing dress in comfort behind the wreck, one of many, which has remained as witness to the force of the terrific gales and the ripping propensities of the saw-teethed rocks.

Walk in from Lee or Mortehoe, Woolacombe or Croyde, over fields in which lambs stand on their front feet in exuberance of youth, or caper on their back ones until called to order by their maternal parent; or through lanes lined with primroses and violets, or roses, or nuts, or berries, according to the season, whilst on the top twig of the high hedges yellow-hammers, chaffinches, robins and the like gossip to you about the hawk hovering in the distance.

Arrived there, pause on the edge of the incline. Don’t go down if you see a paper bag fluttering in the breeze, because a paper bag is but a forerunner of lanky locks dripping on a towel-covered shoulder, and bare and uncomely feet fiddling in the warm sand, whilst adjacent is the rock over which the faded blue bathing dress hangs out to dry.