She was dressed in a brown cloak, with a plain black silk gown under it.  On her head was the same simple straw hat which she had worn on the morning when we first met.  A veil was attached to it now which hid her face from me.  By her side trotted a little Italian greyhound, the pet companion of all her walks, smartly dressed in a scarlet cloth wrapper, to keep the sharp air from his delicate skin.  She did not seem to notice the dog.  She walked straight forward, with her head drooping a little, and her arms folded in her cloak.  The dead leaves, which had whirled in the wind before me when I had heard of her marriage engagement in the morning, whirled in the wind before her, and rose and fell and scattered themselves at her feet as she walked on in the pale waning sunlight.  The dog shivered and trembled, and pressed against her dress impatiently for notice and encouragement.  But she never heeded him.  She walked on, farther and farther away from me, with the dead leaves whirling about her on the path—­ walked on, till my aching eyes could see her no more, and I was left alone again with my own heavy heart.

In another hour’s time I had done my work, and the sunset was at hand.  I got my hat and coat in the hall, and slipped out of the house without meeting any one.

The clouds were wild in the western heaven, and the wind blew chill from the sea.  Far as the shore was, the sound of the surf swept over the intervening moorland, and beat drearily in my ears when I entered the churchyard.  Not a living creature was in sight.  The place looked lonelier than ever as I chose my position, and waited and watched, with my eyes on the white cross that rose over Mrs. Fairlie’s grave.

XIII

The exposed situation of the churchyard had obliged me to be cautious in choosing the position that I was to occupy.

The main entrance to the church was on the side next to the burial-ground, and the door was screened by a porch walled in on either side.  After some little hesitation, caused by natural reluctance to conceal myself, indispensable as that concealment was to the object in view, I had resolved on entering the porch.  A loophole window was pierced in each of its side walls.  Through one of these windows I could see Mrs. Fairlie’s grave.  The other looked towards the stone quarry in which the sexton’s cottage was built.  Before me, fronting the porch entrance, was a patch of bare burial-ground, a line of low stone wall, and a strip of lonely brown hill, with the sunset clouds sailing heavily over it before the strong, steady wind.  No living creature was visible or audible—­no bird flew by me, no dog barked from the sexton’s cottage.  The pauses in the dull beating of the surf were filled up by the dreary rustling of the dwarf trees near the grave, and the cold faint bubble of the brook over its stony bed.  A dreary scene and a dreary hour.  My spirits sank fast as I counted out the minutes of the evening in my hiding-place under the church porch.