“How she loves him!” murmured Mr. Jerningham, as he bent over her, and assisted her father in carrying her to the adjoining room. “So ends my dream!” At midnight the lumbering, hooded gig returned with Daniel Mayfield--and despair. He had been into every dwelling-place at Halko’s Head, had roused drowsy fishermen from their beds, but no trace or tidings of Eustace Thorburn had reached that lonely village. He came back when all possible means of finding the lost had been exhausted. Mr. Jerningham was up, and watching for him. More than this had he done. He had hired a couple of men, provided with lanterns, who were ready in the inn, prepared to accompany Harold Jerningham and Daniel Mayfield on an exploration of the coast, for the tide was now out. The rain had ceased, and faint stars glimmered here and there on the cloudy sky. “Will you go down to the sands with these men and me?” asked Mr. Jerningham, when Daniel had described his bootless errand. To this proposal Daniel assented, almost mechanically. In his utter despair he had ceased to wonder why Harold Jerningham should take so keen an interest in his nephew’s peril. He was glad to do anything--he knew not, cared not what. That seemed like action. But since his useless journey to Halko’s Head hope had left him. They went down to the sands and wandered there for hours, examining every turn and angle of the rugged cliff that towered above them, dark and gloomy as the wall of some fortress-prison. The exploration only strengthened their despair. Against that iron-bound coast how many a helpless wretch must have been crushed to death! Between the swift advancing wall of waters, and that perpendicular boundary what was there for the traveller but a grave! They pored upon the sand, lighted by the fitful glare of the lanterns, looking for some trace of the lost--a handkerchief, a glove, a purse, a scrap of paper--but they found no such token. Harold Jerningham remembered the yellow wild flowers which the young man had put in his breast. With those poor memorials of his mother’s youth he had gone to his untimely death. “If the superstitions of priests have any foundation, and my son and I shall meet before the judgment-throne, surely I shall see those wild flowers in his hand,” thought Mr. Jerningham, as he remembered the last look of the bright young face which had been said to resemble his own. He thought also of such a night as this four-and-twenty years ago, when he had searched the same coast, with terror in his mind. Then his fears had been wasted. Oh, that it might be so now!