Cyril made the circuit of the chapel, which was closely locked against intrusion. He looked at the statue, and turned his face idly seaward for the twentieth time, thinking within himself how foolishly he was wasting his day, and how little this perambulation of the Mont Dol would help him towards the accomplishment of his mission; and as he was thinking thus, and as he turned from the statue to the sea, he found himself face to face with something sweeter than the glad blue sea, dearer than all the wide bright earth, the face of the woman he loved.
She was standing before him, looking at him with a grave sad smile, dressed in black, and thin and careworn, beautiful only for eyes that loved her, since she had wasted the freshness of her youth and beauty in tears and sleepless nights, and untimely cares.
‘Beatrix!’ he cried, with a rush of gladness that almost stifled him. ‘Beatrix, Providence has sent us to meet here. I had sworn to myself to travel all over the world in search of you.’
‘Why should you want to find me?’ she asked. ‘I thought there were no two persons on this earth with less reason to wish to meet than you and I.’
‘I should not have presumed to follow you if I had not a motive strong enough to excuse my audacity. I have brought you this.’
He took Christian Harefield’s last letter from his pocket, and gave it her without a word of explanation.
‘From my father!’ she cried, looking at the address, and then tearing open the envelope with trembling hands. ‘In heaven’s name how did you come by this letter—from my dead father? You who suspected me——’
Tears choked her. She brushed the hot drops from her eyes, and began to read the letter.
‘“Sunday night, December 23rd,”’ she began, falteringly.
‘Why, that was the night before his death,’ she cried. ‘Read it for me. I cannot see the words. They swim before my eyes.’