They fell into silence, each feeling the rapture of the other's presence, after the prolonged separation, as something more than human. So intense was it that Ellen, at least, might have been content to die in it there and then. The sea changed its beautiful colours, the sky seemed to smile on them, the children played overhead, a silvery flute from some unseen boat in the distance was softly playing. No: Eden could never have been sweeter than this. "What have you been doing, all this time by yourself at Eastsea?" he at length asked her. "Very much what I am doing now, I think--sitting here to watch the sea," she answered. "There has been nothing else to do. It was always dull." "Has Mrs. Cumberland had any visitors?" "Dr. Rane has been here twice. He gives a bad account of things at Dallory. The strike shows no signs of coming to an end; and the men are in want." "So Dick says. I get a letter from him sometimes." A great amount of talking, this. The tide turned; a big steamer went by in the distance. "Do you hear that, Ellen?" A man's soft tenor voice had struck up a love-song overhead: "Ellen Adair," Robin Adair, as the world more often has it. Arthur Bohun used to hear it sung as "Ellin Adair," when he was recovering from his wound in Ireland; the Irish insisted on it that so it was in the original song; and he had sometimes asked Ellen to sing it so for him since. The children ceased their play; the verses went on, and these two below the rocks, unseen, listened to the end, catching every word distinctly. "Yet her I loved so well, Still in my heart shall dwell. Oh! I shall ne'er forget Ellen Adair." "Nor I," softly spoke Arthur, as the refrain died away. Mrs. Cumberland was up when they got in. Ann had told her of Captain Bohun's appearance and that he had gone to find Miss Adair. Mrs. Cumberland took a few minutes for consideration, and then decided on her course of conduct, and that was to speak to Captain Bohun. It might have been all very well, whilst she was armed with no authority, tacitly to countenance Captain Bohun's frequent visits; but now that she had authority, she deemed it right, in justice to Ellen, to take a different standing. If Captain Bohun had serious intentions, well and good; if not, she should request him to bring the intimacy to a close. Feeling the responsibility that lay upon her as the sole guardian in Europe of Ellen Adair, she thought she should be justified in saying so much, for, unless Arthur Bohun proposed to make the young lady his wife, it was cruel to allow her to fall in love with him. When Mrs. Cumberland once made her mind up to any resolve, she did not usually lose time in putting it into practice, and she lost none here. Taking the opportunity this same evening, when Ellen was out of the room; sent from it by herself on some errand of excuse; she spoke to Captain Bohun.