“Train, to be sure,” cried the young man, heartily. “Why, you both look brown already. So glad to see you looking better, Julia.”
“Well, it was very nice of you to come, Harry. But how’s poor Mr Magnus?”
“Heaps better. I persuaded him to come down with me for a week. I left him at the hotel.”
“Oh, you good boy,” whispered Cynthia; and then they strolled gently on till they were a long distance from the last houses in the town. The sun made the calm sea shimmer like damasked silver, and in the transparent pools the water was many-tinted with the reflections from the green and grey and yellow cliffs; and, as such people will, both Cynthia and Harry grew more and more selfish, taking it as a matter of course that Julia should grow fatigued and seat herself upon one of the rocks that had fallen from above, to be ground, and beaten, and polished smooth on one side, while the other was roughened with the limpets and acorn barnacles that crusted it like a rugged bark.
In fact, they forgot Julia in the intense interest of their pursuit as they wandered on, for Cynthia had to be helped from rock to rock, as they went out as far as the water would allow, and she had to make daring jumps of a few inches over rushing, gurgling streams of water that ebbed and flowed amongst the stones. Then the tiny point of her pretty shoe was always poking itself inquiringly into crevices, out of which Harry had to fish red anemones or unusually large limpets or mussels. Then they had a mania for gathering enough periwinkles for tea, Cynthia declaring that she would wriggle them out with a pin and eat them. But when about a dozen had been found, the search was given up for some other pursuit; perhaps it was a well-ground oyster-shell, all pearly, or a peculiar bit of seaweed; and once, close up under the cliffs where the path was very narrow, and the sea right in, the rocks were so rough and the way so awkward that Harry had to help little Cynthia very much—so much, that if a boat had been passing its occupants would have seen two handsome young faces in extremely close proximity. But no boat was passing to make Cynthia turn so scarlet as she did, hence the marvel; and they went on in their love-dream a little longer, thinking what a wonderfully bright and happy world this was, and how beautiful sea, sky, rock, and beach had become, glorified as they were by their young happy love, when Cynthia suddenly awoke.
“Oh, Harry!” she exclaimed, with the tears in her eyes, “how cruel, to be sure. Poor Julie! Let’s make haste back.”
“Oh, yes. She’ll be rested by now.”
“I was so thoughtless,” half sobbed Cynthia.
“She is so nervous, and she will be thinking she sees that dreadful man.”
“Who is not likely to be here, my darling,” said Artingale, smiling.