"Would you like to go down to the edge of the sea?" Julian asked her.
"I'd like to very much."
She did not ask whether he meant to accompany her, but after a moment moved away, and Julian remained in the car, feeling the sting of the salt on his lips and listening to the faint sound of the water on the grey expanse of gleaming sand.
No one knew how many nights in the year he came to the edge of Culmouth sands and paid silent, involuntary tribute there.
He came nearer to making a confidence than perhaps ever before when Miss Marchrose came back again, and took her place beside him.
"I always wanted to go to sea," said Sir Julian Rossiter slowly. "It wasn't practicable because I was the only son, and my father wouldn't hear of it, on account of the place. But that was what I wanted."
"Yes, I see," said Miss Marchrose.
And something underlying the note of beauty which he had before admired in her voice carried to Sir Julian the conviction that she did see.
He drove her to the gate of the farm, and they talked a little, with comfortable inconsequence, on the way.
When she got out of the car, Miss Marchrose thanked him cordially, and her movements, as she crossed the yard and went up the stone steps to the house door, were no longer eloquent of weariness.