and sauntered up the path toward it and disappeared. The boat was about
putting out again when a man came running up to the Colonel, and begged
him to wait to speak with the Captain of a schooner standing out about
half a mile. The Captain had come ashore on purpose to see him and was a
little way down the beach now hurrying toward him. The business was
urgent.

"Go back without me," the Colonel said. "I may be kept here for some
time." But Elizabeth had had enough of sailing for that day; she was
already on shore and said that she would rather walk home. As Pepperell
left her with an apology she walked on a few rods, and stopped to speak
to a fisherman cleaning his boat. She had seen him at the house and had
heard that he had lost his child the week before. As she turned from him
she went on slowly until she came to where a boulder towered over her
head and seemed to bar her progress except along the shore. She knew the
zigzag way that wound about its base and led her into the straight path
again which would take her across the grounds of Seascape and bring her
into the road not far from Colonel Pepperell's home. But before she had
time to enter this way, voices on the other side of the boulder startled
her. Her first thought was that Lady Dacre and her husband had come
back. But she perceived that the tones were Bulchester's. She stood
still an instant, wishing that she could reach the road without being
obliged to talk to him or any one, she felt so little like it. But there
was no hope of that. There was a rough seat cut in the stone on the
other side; the views landward and seaward were delightful; the great
elm near by shaded the place, and Bulchester had probably ensconced
himself there with somebody else. She must go by, and if they even
joined her, it was no matter. She made a movement forward, when
Edrnonson's voice with a ring that she had never heard in it came to her
ears. Yet it was not his tones, but his words, that made her cower and