[96]

“Take my arm, Lady Monica,” said Randolph. “This is too much for you.”

“Thank you,” she answered, gently; and a sudden thrill ran through Randolph’s frame as he felt the clinging pressure of her hand upon his arm, and was conscious that she was grateful for the strong support against the fury of the elements.

“It will be a dreadful night at sea,” [97]said the girl presently, when a lull in the wind made speech more easy. “Look at the waves now? Are they not magnificent?”

[97]

The sea was looking very wild and grand; Randolph halted a moment beneath the shelter of a projecting crag, and gazed at the tempest-tossed ocean beneath.

“You like a storm at sea, Lady Monica?”

She looked at him with a sort of horror in her eyes.

“Like a storm!”

“You were admiring the grandeur of the sea just now.”

“Ah, you do not understand!” she said, and gazed out before her, a far-away look in her eyes. Presently she spoke again, looking at him for a moment with a world of sadness in her eyes, and then away [98]over the tossing sea. “It is all very grand, very beautiful, very wonderful; but oh, so cruel, so pitiless in its strength and beauty! Think of the sailors, the fishermen out on the sea on a night like this, and the wives and mothers and little children, waiting at home for those who, perhaps, will never come back again. You do not understand. You belong to another world. You are not one of us. I have been down amongst them on wild, stormy nights. I have paced the beach with weeping women, watching, waiting for the boats that never came back, or came only to be dashed in pieces against the cruel rocks before our very eyes.” She paused a moment, and he felt her shudder in every limb; but her voice was still low and quiet, just vibrating with the depth of her feelings, but very [99]calm and even. “I have seen boats go down within sight of home, within sound of our voices, almost within reach of our outstretched hands—almost, but not quite; and I have seen brave men, men I have known from childhood, swept away to their death, whilst we—their wives, their mothers, and I—have stood at the water’s edge, powerless to succour them. Ah, you do not, you cannot understand! I have seen all 

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