Coming slowly through the clump of palms was a white woman, clad in a creamy dress of some silken texture, with a wide-brimmed panama perched upon a wavy mass of dark brown hair, which shone like gold where the sunbeams kissed it.
Her face was of a dead white, and the beautiful features were thin and drawn, whilst her brown eyes, ringed in black circles and filled with a look of piteous sadness, seemed too big for the rest of the face.
As she reached the edge of the sand and espied the rolling-stone, an involuntary cry broke from her lips. For a second she stood stock still, whilst a look of amazement crept into her eyes.
Then, satisfied that her vision was playing her no trick, she advanced into the open, restraining with difficulty a passionate desire to rush forward and throw herself at the blind man's feet.
And then, as she drew nearer to this man whom she had treated so badly, though from no fault of her own, but through sheer force of circumstances, a strange hesitation filled her. Her heart, beating suffocatingly, urged her forward and yet dragged her back at the same time; her feet lagged, then hurried, then lagged again, whilst her hands twined themselves together nervous and shaking.
At last she stood before him, looking down upon his haggard, storm-lined features, from which the blind eyes stared up vacantly with an expression which even in her agitation she could not help but notice.
"You, Jack—you?" she began softly, and her voice trembled in spite of a great endeavour to keep it steady.
"Yes, me, Loyola," came the reply; but how dull, how indifferent, how hard and cold were the well-known tones.
An icy chill crept shuddering down her back at the sound of this strange new voice, so different to the one she had been used to in the old happy days, now so far away, so long ago, though not in time.
The pallor of her face took on a greyish tinge and the sadness in her eyes deepened.