It was so now. On this piece of chalk he had put his arm round Jane's waist and spoken his love into her ear. There where now lay pebbles and a ribbon of torn weed, there in a crystal pool he had seen her frightened face reflected—and into it her tears had fallen.
In all this there was naught to sting and stab. But he recalled something further.
It was here, on this same shelf of chalk, that he had sworn—when she confided to him that she would be a mother—that he would stand by herself and her child through life, and he had taken the oath with the deliberate intent of breaking it.
This was the story.
When Joseph Holwood had passed his final examination at Oxford, he had come to Lyme Regis for a change of scene and air. His family possessed some influence, and it was an assured thing that he should have a situation in one of the Government offices. He enjoyed a small income of his own, not sufficient to maintain him in luxury, but this, added to a salary derived from his appointment, would make his position easy.
Till he received his nomination—he was promised one in the Foreign Office—he resolved to recruit after his studies, amuse himself at Lyme, boat, fish, bathe, and think of nothing.
So he went there, and spent some summer months in idleness, and in that summer weather and relaxation from all care met Jane Marley, a beautiful girl with large rich brown eyes, a ripe complexion, glorious dark hair, and a regal carriage. An atmosphere of romance surrounded her. Her father, who was dead, had been a smuggler. Her brother had been quite recently shot in an encounter with a preventive officer, and she had been left alone, without a known relative in the town of Lyme. There were an independence and an intensity of character in Jane that imposed on the young man. She was a girl not to be trifled with, but one to impose respect. Joseph Holwood fell madly in love with this magnificent girl, and on this very stone he now occupied had declared to her his passion, its honourable nature, and had wrung from her consent.
Above, on the heights, was a parish church, St. Pancras, Rousdon, a sinecure, as there was no population within the parish bounds, and the church had been suffered to fall into decay, and nothing remained of it but crumbling walls and unglazed windows.
In this ruined building a disreputable incumbent of the living, who resided in Lyme, and picked up stray guineas for odd duties elsewhere, was induced to marry the couple for a bank note of five guineas, without licence and without banns.