A little afterwards, four yachtsmen carrying a very heavy chest, and guided by a fifth with a lantern, passed close in front of me as I lay, and were admitted to the pavilion by the nurse.  They returned to the beach, and passed me a third time with another chest, larger but apparently not so heavy as the first.  A third time they made the transit; and on this occasion one of the yachtsmen carried a leather portmanteau, and the others a lady’s trunk and carriage bag.  My curiosity was sharply excited.  If a woman were among the guests of Northmour, it would show a change in his habits, and an apostasy from his pet theories of life, well calculated to fill me with surprise.  When he and I dwelt there together, the pavilion had been a temple of misogyny.  And now, one of the detested sex was to be installed under its roof.  I remembered one or two particulars, a few notes of daintiness and almost of coquetry which had struck me the day before as I surveyed the preparations in the house; their purpose was now clear, and I thought myself dull not to have perceived it from the first.

While I was thus reflecting, a second lantern drew near me from the beach.  It was carried by a yachtsman whom I had not yet seen, and who was conducting two other persons to the pavilion.  These two persons were unquestionably the guests for whom the house was made ready; and, straining eye and ear, I set myself to watch them as they passed.  One was an unusually tall man, in a traveling hat slouched over his eyes, and a highland cape closely buttoned and turned up so as to conceal his face.  You could make out no more of him than that he was, as I have said, unusually tall, and walked feebly with a heavy stoop.  By his side, and either clinging to him or giving him support—­I could not make out which—­was a young, tall, and slender figure of a woman.  She was extremely pale; but in the light of the lantern her face was so marred by strong and changing shadows, that she might equally well have been as ugly as sin or as beautiful as I afterwards found her to be.

When they were just abreast of me, the girl made some remark which was drowned by the noise of the wind.

“Hush!” said her companion; and there was something in the tone with which the word was uttered that thrilled and rather shook my spirits.  It seemed to breathe from a bosom laboring under the deadliest terror; I have never heard another syllable so expressive; and I still hear it again when I am feverish at night, and my mind runs upon old times.  The man turned toward the girl as he spoke; I had a glimpse of much red beard and a nose which seemed to have been broken in youth; and his light eyes seemed shining in his face with some strong and unpleasant emotion.

But these two passed on and were admitted in their turn to the pavilion.

One by one, or in groups, the seamen returned to the beach.  The wind brought me the sound of a rough voice crying, “Shove off!” Then, after a pause, another lantern drew near.  It was Northmour alone.