It was there, sitting as she sat now, her eyes upon the
shimmering waste of sea, and the gulls circling overhead, that
she had awakened to the knowledge of her love for Crispin. And
so to him strayed now her thoughts, and to the fate her father
had sent him to; and thus back again to her father and the evil
he had wrought. It is matter for conjecture whether her
loathing for Gregory would have been as intense as it was, had
another than Crispin Galliard been his victim.

Her life seemed at an end as she sat that October evening on
the cliffs. No single interest linked her to existence;
nothing, it seemed, was left her to hope for till the end
should come - and no doubt it would be long in coming, for time
moves slowly when we wait.

Wistful she sat and thought, and every thought begat a sigh,
and then of a sudden - surely her ears had tricked her,
enslaved by her imagination - a crisp, metallic voice rang out
close behind her.

"Why are we pensive, Mistress Cynthia?"

There was a catch in her breath as she turned her head. Her
cheeks took fire, and for a second were aflame. Then they went
deadly white, and it seemed that time and life and the very
world had paused in its relentless progress towards eternity.
For there stood the object of her thoughts and sighs, sudden
and unexpected, as though the earth had cast him up on to her
surface.