It was too dark to see the melting of her face; but he knew it was there. They stood on the piazza of the cottage in the strong, salt wind. Her muslin dress blew back. The dim light of the candle within scarcely defined her figure. They seemed to stand like creatures of the dusk, uncertain of each other or of themselves. He held out his hand; she placed her own within it cordially. How warm and womanly, how strong and fine a touch she had! He bade her good-night, and hurried away. That “something” which is to supersede the sermon was not written that night. Bayard found himself unable to work. He sat doggedly at his desk for an hour, then gave it up, put out his light, and seized his hat again. He went down to the beach and skirted the shore, taking the spray in his face. His brain was on fire; not with intellectual labor. His heart throbbed; not with anxiety for the fishing population. He reached a reef whence he could see the Mainsail Hotel, and there sat down to collect himself. The cottage was lighted now; the parlor windows glimmered softly; the long, lace curtains were blowing in and out. Shadows of figures passed and repassed. The Professor had settled the state of the Unforgiven, and had come back from the clam study; he paced to and fro across the parlor of the Flying Jib; a graceful figure clung to his theologic arm, and kept step with him as he strode. Presently she came to the low window, and pushed back the lace curtain, which had blown in, half across the little parlor. She lifted her arms, and shut the window. The waves beat the feet of the cliff monotonously; like the bars of a rude, large music which no man had been able to read. Bayard listened to them with his head thrown back on the hard rock, and his hat over his eyes. Even the gaze of the stars seemed intrusive, curious, one might say impertinent, to him. He desired the shell of the mollusk that burrowed in the cleft of the cliff. The tide was rising steadily. The harbor wore its full look; it seemed about to overflow, like a surcharged heart. The waves rose on; they took definite rhythm. All the oldest, sweetest meanings of music--the maddest and the tenderest cries of human longing--were in the strain:-- “Komm beglücke mich? Beglücke mich!” Those mighty lovers, the sea and the shore, urged and answered, resisted and yielded, protested and pleaded, retreated and met, loved and clasped, and slept. When the tide came to the full, the wind went down. XV.