"And I was happy too in my own way. Why can't one always be fifteen,
and believe everything one is told?" and she sighed. "Seven years and
nothing done yet. Work, work, and nothing coming out of the work, and
everything fading away. I think that life is very dreary when one has
lost everything, and found nothing, and loves nobody. I wonder what it
will be like in another seven years."

She covered her eyes with her hands, and then taking them away, once
more looked at the water. Such light as struggled through the fog
was behind her, and the mist was thickening. At first she had some
difficulty in tracing her own likeness upon the glassy surface, but
gradually she marked its outline. It stretched away from her, and its
appearance was as though she herself were lying on her back in the water
wrapped about with the fleecy mist. "How curious it seems," she thought;
"what is it that reflection reminds me of with the white all round it?"

Next instant she gave a little cry and turned sharply away. She knew
now. It recalled her mother as she had last seen her seven years ago.



CHAPTER II

AT THE BELL ROCK

A mile or more away from where Beatrice stood and saw visions, and
further up the coast-line, a second group of rocks, known from their
colour as the Red Rocks, or sometimes, for another reason, as the Bell
Rocks, juts out between half and three-quarters of a mile into the
waters of the Welsh Bay that lies behind Rumball Point. At low tide