Barnet decided to allow them a proper time to themselves, and then stroll down to the shore and drive them home.  After lingering on at the house for another hour he started with this intention.  A few hundred yards below ‘Chateau Ringdale’ stood the cottage in which the late lieutenant’s daughter had her lodging.  Barnet had not been so far that way for a long time, and as he approached the forbidden ground a curious warmth passed into him, which led him to perceive that, unless he were careful, he might have to fight the battle with himself about Lucy over again.  A tenth of his present excuse would, however, have justified him in travelling by that road to-day.

He came opposite the dwelling, and turned his eyes for a momentary glance into the little garden that stretched from the palings to the door.  Lucy was in the enclosure; she was walking and stooping to gather some flowers, possibly for the purpose of painting them, for she moved about quickly, as if anxious to save time.  She did not see him; he might have passed unnoticed; but a sensation which was not in strict unison with his previous sentiments that day led him to pause in his walk and watch her.  She went nimbly round and round the beds of anemones, tulips, jonquils, polyanthuses, and other old-fashioned flowers, looking a very charming figure in her half-mourning bonnet, and with an incomplete nosegay in her left hand.  Raising herself to pull down a lilac blossom she observed him.

‘Mr. Barnet!’ she said, innocently smiling.  ’Why, I have been thinking of you many times since Mrs. Barnet went by in the pony-carriage, and now here you are!’

‘Yes, Lucy,’ he said.

Then she seemed to recall particulars of their last meeting, and he believed that she flushed, though it might have been only the fancy of his own supersensitivenesss.

‘I am going to the harbour,’ he added.

‘Are you?’ Lucy remarked simply.  ’A great many people begin to go there now the summer is drawing on.’

Her face had come more into his view as she spoke, and he noticed how much thinner and paler it was than when he had seen it last.  ’Lucy, how weary you look! tell me, can I help you?’ he was going to cry out.—­’If I do,’ he thought, ‘it will be the ruin of us both!’ He merely said that the afternoon was fine, and went on his way.

As he went a sudden blast of air came over the hill as if in contradiction to his words, and spoilt the previous quiet of the scene.  The wind had already shifted violently, and now smelt of the sea.