reproach. I took this relief that nature meant for such as I, wearing
myself into the indifference of exhaustion, to which must sooner or
later ensue the indifference brought by time. Sometimes a flock of small
brown sandbirds watched me curiously from a sodden bank of sea-weed,
but that was all.

This story is not of myself, however, or of the pain which I cured in
this natural way, and which is but a memory now.

One gray morning a white mist settled heavily, and I could see but a
short distance on the dark waters for the fog. A fresh access of the
suffering which I was fighting, the wildness of my grief and struggles,
wore me out, so that I fell asleep there on the rough sand, my mouth
laid against the salty pebbles, and my hands grasping the sharp,
yielding grains, crushed as if some giant foot had trodden me into the
earth.

I was awakened by a soft speculative voice. "Another, perhaps," I
thought it said. Starting up, I saw standing beside me a thin, shrinking
figure, drenched like myself by the salt mist. From under a coarse, dark
straw hat, a small, delicate face regarded me shyly, yet calmly. It was
very pale, a little sunken, and surrounded by a cloud of light, curling
hair, blown loose by the wind; the wide sensitive lips were almost
colorless, and the peculiar eyes, greenish and great-pupiled, were
surrounded by stained, discolored rings that might have been the result
of weary vigils, or of ill-health. The woman, who was possibly thirty,
must once have been possessed of a fragile type of beauty, but it was
irretrievably lost now in the premature age that had evidently settled
upon her.