3 August.—­Another week gone by, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard.  Oh, I do hope he is not ill.  He surely would have written.  I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me.  It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing.  There is no mistake of that.

Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand, even in her sleep she seems to be watching me.  She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for the key.

6 August.—­Another three days, and no news.  This suspense is getting dreadful.  If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier.  But no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter.  I must only pray to God for patience.

Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well.  Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm.  I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs.

Today is a gray day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness.  Everything is gray except the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it, gray earthy rock, gray clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the gray sea, into which the sandpoints stretch like gray figures.  The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland.  The horizon is lost in a gray mist.  All vastness, the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a ‘brool’ over the sea that sounds like some passage of doom.  Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem ‘men like trees walking’.  The fishing boats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers.  Here comes old Mr. Swales.  He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk.

I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man.  When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way, “I want to say something to you, miss.”

I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully.

So he said, leaving his hand in mine, “I’m afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I’ve been sayin’ about the dead, and such like, for weeks past, but I didn’t mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I’m gone.  We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don’t altogether like to think of it, and we don’t want to feel scart of it, and that’s why I’ve took to makin’ light of it, so that I’d cheer up my own heart a bit.  But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain’t afraid of dyin’, not a bit, only I don’t want to die if I can help it.  My time must be nigh at hand now, for I