words on her lips were, "Where is Arthur?" Where, indeed, was he? When he left Edith he rushed in a paroxysm of rage to the sea-side, and there, bare-headed, he amused himself with walking up and down, cursing woman's fickleness and all good waltzers in his heart. Suddenly a little boat shot round one of the small capes which so gracefully indent the coast, a youth sprang out, and approaching Arthur, unperceived, passed his arm through the wanderer's and addressed him in the well-known
"Why bare-headed are you come,
Or why come you at all!"
It was an old college friend; and Arthur, between anger and confidence, was soon moved to tell his story. "I will tell you what you shall do; come with me into my boat, my yatcht waits me in the offing; we will have a pleasant sail, a gay supper, and to-morrow, you, having so shown with what spirit you can act, shall to-morrow go and beg your fair tyrant's pardon—or, what is far better, let her beg your's." Arthur was just in that sort of mood, when we are ready to let anyone decide for us rather than ourselves. He went with his friend, had a gay supper, and did what he could to drown a few of Edith's frowns in Champagne. He woke the next morning with a head-ache, and the agreeable intelligence that they were driven out to sea. It was a week before they could land; and when they did, of course Arthur's first thought was to hasten to Edith. For this purpose he was put in at the very creek which he had left the day before. "You look so handsome in my foraging cap," said his gay companion, "that you must carry everything before you."
Arthur's step was as heavy as his spirits. He could not disguise from himself that his strange absence must have inflicted a degree of most cruel anxiety, and he dreaded to see Edith again. The sound of the bell tolling for a funeral did not add to his cheerfulness. He had to pass by the little churchyard, and saw a group of people in the one corner. Surely they were gathered round the old vault of the Trevanions. He entered—the rattle of the earth on the coffin struck upon his ear—the vault was open, and the clergyman was reading the last sacred words that part the dead from the living. He asked one question, and the wretched young man heard the name of Edith Trevanion. His sudden disappearance, and his hat having been found on the sea-shore, led to the belief that he had destroyed himself. This report had been hastily communicated to Edith, and she had broken a blood- vessel. Death followed instantly. In the small churchyard, whose old yews are seen at a great distance out at sea, is an old-fashioned monument—it is the vault of the Trevanion family. The last inscription is—
"Edith Trevanion, aged 19."
