Page:The Yellow Book - 02.djvu/284

248 One afternoon, some months later, Broomhurst climbed the steep lane leading to the cliffs of a little English village by the sea. He had already been to the inn, and had been shown by the proprietress the house where Mrs. Drayton lodged.

"The lady was out, but the gentleman would likely find her if he went to the cliffs—down by the bay, or thereabouts," her land lady explained, and, obeying her directions, Broomhurst presently emerged from the shady woodland path on to the hillside over hanging the sea.

He glanced eagerly round him, and then with a sudden quickening of the heart, walked on over the springy heather to where she sat. She turned when the rustling his footsteps made through the bracken was near enough to arrest her attention, and looked up at him as he came. Then she rose slowly and stood waiting for him. He came up to her without a word and seized both her hands, devouring her face with his eyes. Something he saw there repelled him. Slowly he let her hands fall, still looking at her silently. "You are not glad to see me, and I have counted the hours," he said at last in a dull toneless voice.

Her lips quivered. "Don't be angry with me—I can't help it—I'm not glad or sorry for anything now," she answered, and her voice matched his for greyness.

They sat down together on a long flat stone half embedded in a wiry clump of whortleberries. Behind them the lonely hill sides rose, brilliant with yellow bracken and the purple of heather. Before them stretched the wide sea. It was a soft grey day. Streaks of pale sunlight trembled at moments far out on the water. Rh