She shut the door of her bedroom behind her and fell at the foot of her bed, her face buried in her hands. Then at last she burst into a storm of tears—
"Robin! Robin!" she cried.
CHAPTER XVI
It was Christmas Eve and the Cove lay buried in snow. The sea was grey like steel, and made no sound as it ebbed and flowed up the little creek. The sky was grey and snowflakes fell lazily, idly, as though half afraid to let themselves go; a tiny orange moon glittered over the chimneys of "The Bended Thumb."
Harry came out of the Inn and stood for a moment to turn up the collar of his coat. The perfect stillness of the scene pleased him; the world was like the breathless moment before some great event: the opening of Pandora's box, the leaping of armed men from the belly of the wooden horse, the flashing of Excalibur over the mere, the birth of some little child.
He sighed as he passed down the street. He had read in his morning paper that the Cove was doomed. The word had gone forth, the Town Council had decided; the Cove was to be pulled down and a street of lodging-houses was to take its place. Pendragon would be no longer a place of contrasts; it would be all of a piece, a completely popular watering-place.
The vision of its passing hurt him—so much must go with it; and gradually he saw the beauty and the superstition and the wonder being driven from the world—the Old World—and a hard Iron and Steel Materialism relentlessly taking its place.
But he himself had changed; the place had had its influence on him, and he was beginning to see the beauty of these improvements, these manufactures, these hard straight lines and gaunt ugly squares. Progress? Progress? Inevitable?—yes! Useful?—why, yes, too! But beautiful?—Well, perhaps ... he did not know.
At the top of the hill he turned and saluted the cold grey sky and sea and moor. The Four Stones were in harmony to-day: white, and pearl-grey, with hints of purple in their shadows—oh beautiful and mysterious world!