“It used to be cut short,” she said. “Hideous! There! Isn’t that glorious?”
She had opened the postern gate in the wall, and through the narrow opening was framed a wonderful picture of the Cornish sea, rolling into the rock-studded bay. Its soft thunder was in their ears; salt and fragrant, the west wind swept into their faces. She closed the gate behind her, and stepped blithely forward.
“Come!” she cried. “We will climb the cliffs where we left you alone once before.”
Side by side they stood looking over the ocean. Her head was thrown back, her lips a little parted. He watched her curiously.
“You must have sea blood in your veins,” he remarked. “You listen as though you heard music all the time.”
“And what about you?” she asked him, smiling. “You are the grandson of Admiral Sir Wingrave Seton who commanded a frigate at Trafalgar, and an ancestor of yours fought in the Armada.”
“I am afraid,” he said quietly, “that there is a hiatus in my life somewhere. There are no voices which call to me any more, and my family records are so much dead parchment.”
Trouble passed into her glowing face and clouded her eyes.
“Ah!” she said, “I do not like to hear you talk so. Do you know that when you do, you make me afraid that something I have always hoped for will never come to pass?”
“What is it?” he asked.