Everything was more lovely now, for there was light to see the loveliness.  The bluff wind that came from the bosom of the sea seemed only to tell of a vast silence and a world asleep.  The rocky shore, with its thin line of white breakers, stretched round to the west.  About a mile away there was a rugged headland, with some crags at its feet, which had been broken off and rolled down into the sea by the Frost Demon of bygone years.  The smallest was farthest out, and wedged behind it and sheltered by it was the black hulk of a wrecked vessel.  This outermost rock lay so that it broke the waves as they came against the wreck, and each was thrown high in a white jet and curl of spray, and fell with a low sob back into the darkness of the sea.

The curate turned and walked toward the headland on the cliff path where he had walked a week before with Violetta.  The cliffs were completely desolate, except for some donkeys browsing here and there, their brown hair silvered by the frost.  There was a superstition in the town that the place was haunted on moonlight nights by the spirit of a woman who had perished in the wreck.  It had been a French vessel, wrecked five years before, and all on board were drowned—­six men and one woman, the wife of the skipper.  They had all been buried in one grave in the little cemetery that was on the top of the headland; and it was easy to see how the superstition of the haunting came about, for as the curate watched the spray on the rock near the wreck rise up in the moonlight and fall back into the sea, he could almost make himself believe that he saw in it the supple form of a woman with uplifted hands, praying heaven for rescue.

The wind was pretty rough when he got to the head of land, and he walked up among the graves to find a place where he might be sheltered and yet have advantage of the view.  He knew that close by the edge of the cliff, over the grave of the shipwrecked people, stood a marble cross, large enough to shelter a man somewhat if he leaned against it.  Upon this cross was a long inscription giving a touching account of the wreck, and stating that it was erected by Matilda Moore, wife of the vicar, out of grief for the sad occurrence, and with an earnest prayer for the unknown bereaved ones.

The curate was rather fond of reading this inscription, as we all are apt to be fond of going over words which, although perfectly familiar to us, still leave some space for curiosity concerning their author and origin, and he was wondering idly as he walked whether there would be light enough from the moon to read them now.  The wind came, like the moonlight, from the south-east, and he walked round by the western side of the graveyard in order to come up the knoll on which the cross stood by the sheltered side.  Everything around him was intensely bleak and white, for the moon, having left the horizon, had lost her golden light, and the colouring of the night had toned down to white and purple.