Dawn brightened with the rising sun, or rather the cloud went by, leaving her in all her native brilliancy.  Miss Weston spent her last day with her, and then went to her friends, with permission to write whenever she felt disposed, but with the caution not to say anything of her to Ralph or Marion.

“I think I must take one more look at the sea before winter closes in,” said Dawn to her father, one pleasant day when the air was still and the foliage bright with autumn hues.

“You will be obliged to go alone, then, for I have too many duties, to accompany you,” he said, and after a moment’s pause, he asked, “Can you not wait a day or two?”

He read an answer in her pleading eyes, which said, “To-day, or not at all; I am in the mood, and must go now.”

“Go, then,” he said, “but do not allow the waves to steal you away.”

It seemed to him that she was slipping from his life; and indeed she was receding, but only to flow again more freely and strongly to him.  As the tide which sweeps out and comes back, each time making a farther inroad upon the shore, so she was outflowing and inflowing, each tidal return beating deeper into his soul.  We must flow out to the ocean, to the depth of living waters, if we would win a firmer abiding in the hearts of those we love.

Dawn walked upon the beach, the very spot where in childhood her ardent spirit first looked upon the sea.  Idly, some might think, she wore the hours away, gathering white pebbles, and throwing them into the waters.

How long she continued thus, thinking of the past and musing of the future, she knew not.  With her, one thought was uppermost, and that was of Ralph, whose letters to her had of late been warm with that spirit which sooner or later glows in every heart.  She felt that to him she had a duty to perform which at the farthest could not long be deferred, and she knew that to meet it, required a strength and a singleness of purpose which would call into service all the philosophy she could command.

The deep silence that surrounded her was at length broken by the sound of a footstep; then a voice was heard, that seemed to her, in her half-entranced state, to come from the world of spirits.  She started, as the voice sounded nearer.  She knew whose voice it was, yet she only whispered to herself, “How strange,” and still gazed upon the sea, while a feeling pervaded her whole soul, akin to joy supernal.

“Dawn, Dawn; I have found you at last, and by the sea!”

Still she looked on the restless waters.  There are moments in every life when speech fails, when words are powerless, when the soul can only express itself by silence.  Such a moment came to Dawn.

Ralph took her hand in his own.  She turned on him a gaze which seemed to bring her soul nearer to his own than ever before, and they walked slowly side by side.  Then he told her that his sister and a friend were on the beach, a mile below; that they had all three come to take one more look at the sea, and to gather mosses.