Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/200

 "Isn't it strange," she said simply, "we've only exchanged a word or two, we never knew one another before this evening, and yet we're like old friends? Isn't it pleasant?"

"Very pleasant," he answered. "We must always be friends."

"Yes, always," she said.

They were standing close to the broken wall of the cottage. It had a wonderfully romantic air in the night air. It was so lonely, and so independent as well. The storms that must beat around it on wild nights, the screams of the birds, the battering roar of the waves, and then to sink into that silence with only the voice of the bell for its company. But Dunbar was no poet—a ruined cottage was a ruined cottage to him.

"I don't like this mist," he said. "It's made me a little uncertain of my bearings. I wonder if you'd mind, Hesther, waiting here for five minutes while I go and see"

"Oh no, we'll all stick together," she interrupted. "Why should we separate? Why, I'm more sure-footed than you are, David. You're trying to mother me again."

"No, I'm not," he answered doggedly; "but I'm really not quite sure of the way down, and if we got in a mess half way it would be much worse your being there. Really these paths can be awfully