‘Do they marry and live happily?’

’Who?  O, the supposed pair.  I think he said—­well, I really forget what he said.’

‘That is stupid of you!’ said the young lady with dismay.

‘Yes.’

‘But he’s a satirist—­I don’t think I care about him now.’

’There you are just wrong.  He is not.  He is, as I believe, an impulsive fellow who has been made to pay the penalty of his rashness in some love affair.’

Thus ended the dialogue of Thursday, but Cytherea read the verses again in private.  On Friday her brother remarked that Springrove had informed him he was going to leave Mr. Gradfield’s in a fortnight to push his fortunes in London.

An indescribable feeling of sadness shot through Cytherea’s heart.  Why should she be sad at such an announcement as that, she thought, concerning a man she had never seen, when her spirits were elastic enough to rebound after hard blows from deep and real troubles as if she had scarcely known them?  Though she could not answer this question, she knew one thing, she was saddened by Owen’s news.

4.  July the twenty-first

A very popular local excursion by steamboat to Lulstead Cove was announced through the streets of Budmouth one Thursday morning by the weak-voiced town-crier, to start at six o’clock the same day.  The weather was lovely, and the opportunity being the first of the kind offered to them, Owen and Cytherea went with the rest.

They had reached the Cove, and had walked landward for nearly an hour over the hill which rose beside the strand, when Graye recollected that two or three miles yet further inland from this spot was an interesting mediaeval ruin.  He was already familiar with its characteristics through the medium of an archaeological work, and now finding himself so close to the reality, felt inclined to verify some theory he had formed respecting it.  Concluding that there would be just sufficient time for him to go there and return before the boat had left the shore, he parted from Cytherea on the hill, struck downwards, and then up a heathery valley.

She remained on the summit where he had left her till the time of his expected return, scanning the details of the prospect around.  Placidly spread out before her on the south was the open Channel, reflecting a blue intenser by many shades than that of the sky overhead, and dotted in the foreground by half-a-dozen small craft of contrasting rig, their sails graduating in hue from extreme whiteness to reddish brown, the varying actual colours varied again in a double degree by the rays of the declining sun.

Presently the distant bell from the boat was heard, warning the passengers to embark.  This was followed by a lively air from the harps and violins on board, their tones, as they arose, becoming intermingled with, though not marred by, the brush of the waves when their crests rolled over—­at the point where the check of the shallows was first felt—­and then thinned away up the slope of pebbles and sand.