"Even if I could do that, how, Liz, could I meet his mother after all she's suffered through me?"

66

Margaret, you are all he has in the world

now."

Then Elizabeth told her how bitterly Hector had made known to her that loss for which he blamed himself in words too hard to be repeated.

Before they slept Margaret agreed to act upon Elizabeth's advice.

CHAPTER XII.

AT SUNRISE.

As the newly-risen sun shone over Wrexham Bay, there was, at an unusually early hour, an eye wakeful and tenderly observant of every beauty that arose at its touch in the grey sea or on the curved line of coast. It was the eye of Hector, who sat on the doorstep of a solitary grey cottage on the cliff at the left of the bay, taking his last farewell.

An isolated and dreary position it looked from the town below. The cliff was black, barren, and steep, and had a peak-shaped summit, from which it derived its name of Pin Point. This one

cottage was situated on a sort of ledge facing the sea, and having the peak-shaped summit on the north.

The cottage itself was anything but dreary looking. It was built of shining stones, whose corners glittered like diamonds in the sun; and though scarcely a flower or blade of grass was to be seen on Pin Point, the cottage was almost encircled by an abundant border of a pretty sea-loving plant.

Hector, dressed in new sailor's clothes, sat looking down on the broad bay, the crowded little harbour, and the town.

It was early the whole scene below him was awakening slowly, and with a sort of lazy reluctance.

There was a distant crashing sound of fishermen's feet on the beach stones-a bustle-a faint shouting and a wagging to and fro of crowded masts in the harbour. The terraces of houses facing the sea shone dazzlingly white, but seemed still to sleep; while from the heart of the town a thousand little spires of smoke arose and mingled into one great blue vapoury cloud that hovered

over Wrexham with obstinate persistency, and would not be dispersed either by the fresh sprayey gusts from the sea or the sweet-scented breezes from inland fields.

The sea looked fresh and crisp. The tide was coming in; the rounded billows, large, green, and full-voiced, took possession of the shore like unchallenged conquerors. A distant sail shone and fluttered like the wing of some white bird held captive by a monster of the deep. It was a glorious morning, and the sailor's dark eyes roved from one beauty to another of the scene below him, remembering how like it was to that which had so deluded him on his wedding-day, when its loveliness had seemed peculiarly his-his very own; as if it were his happiness which made the billows shout and the sea-gulls reel with such wild delight in the sunshine; that made the sands so fair and yellow-the heavens themselves so warm, and wide, and blue.

As his eye rested on the old smoke-covered

town, and the black tarred fishermen's cottages that lay between it and Pin Point, a form in the distance caught his eye that made him suddenly start, and conceal himself within the cottage.

That same morning Elizabeth Vandereck had stood at her door, waving her blue flannel apron to a figure far along the sands-a figure that kept turning to look back, and that sometimes began to retrace her steps in the direction of the widow's cottage. But no sooner did Elizabeth see this than she stayed further advance towards her by holding up her hand, palm outwards, and signing it back.

Her little ones stood on either side the widow, holding by her gown, and crying in its folds at Margaret's departure.

But they soon discovered that playing at hideand-seek round their inattentive mother was better fun than crying; and Elizabeth, when the figure had disappeared round the cliffs, stopped