The sun was low in the west when Eustace left that lonely sea-shore. He had been walking there for hours, indifferent alike to the progress of time and to the fact that he had eaten nothing since nine o’clock that morning. And after leaving the sands he did not return immediately to his hotel, but made his way to the parish churchyard, guided by the old Norman tower, which stood out in sombre relief against a rosy evening sky. There was just light enough to serve him in his search amongst the tombstones; nor was he long finding that which he sought--a tall, white head-stone, standing near the low wall which bounded the crowded burial-place. The churchyard stood on rising ground; and the irregular roofs and chimneys of the town, with here and there a glimpse of foliage, and the broad purple sea for a background, made no unlovely picture in the soft evening light. Eustace knelt upon the grass beside the simple grave, and in that pious attitude read the inscription on the head-stone: Sacred to the Memory OF EUSTACE THORNBURN MAYFIELD, YOUNGEST SON OF THE LATE SAMUEL MAYFIELD, CURATE OF ASHE, IN THIS COUNTY, Obiit April 3, 1846, ætat. 52; AND OF MARY CELIA, HIS WIDOW, SECOND DAUGHTER OF THE LATE MR. JAMES HOWDEN, FARMER, Obiit February 1, 1847, ætat. 49. This stone is erected by their affectionate children. “Have I any right to think of them as my grandfather and my grandmother?” the young man asked himself. “The law would tell me no. But I take my stand upon a higher law than that made by political economists, and claim the right to call these my kindred, and to avenge their injuries.” CHAPTER VII. MR. JERNINGHAM’S GUEST.