A little afterwards, four yachtsmen carrying a very heavy chest, and
guided by a fifth with a lantern, passed close in front of me as I lay,
and were admitted to the pavilion by the nurse. They returned to the
beach, and passed me a third time with another chest, larger but
apparently not so heavy as the first. A third time they made the transit;
and on this occasion one of the yachtsmen carried a leather portmanteau,
and the others a lady's trunk and carriage bag. My curiosity was sharply
excited. If a woman were among the guests of Northmour, it would show a
change in his habits, and an apostasy from his pet theories of life, well
calculated to fill me with surprise. When he and I dwelt there together,
the pavilion had been a temple of misogyny. And now, one of the detested
sex was to be installed under its roof. I remembered one or two
particulars, a few notes of daintiness and almost of coquetry which had
struck me the day before as I surveyed the preparations in the house;
their purpose was now clear, and I thought myself dull not to have
perceived it from the first.

While I was thus reflecting, a second lantern drew near me from the beach.
It was carried by a yachtsman whom I had not yet seen, and who was
conducting two other persons to the pavilion. These two persons were
unquestionably the guests for whom the house was made ready; and,
straining eye and ear, I set myself to watch them as they passed. One was
an unusually tall man, in a traveling hat slouched over his eyes, and a
highland cape closely buttoned and turned up so as to conceal his face.
You could make out no more of him than that he was, as I have said,
unusually tall, and walked feebly with a heavy stoop. By his side, and
either clinging to him or giving him support--I could not make out
which--was a young, tall, and slender figure of a woman. She was extremely
pale; but in the light of the lantern her face was so marred by strong and
changing shadows, that she might equally well have been as ugly as sin or