Having thus spoken, Lady Kildhurm retired to her chamber. Sir Brian sat alone in his high-backed chair by the fire-place, resting his lean cheek upon his hand, and staring at the embers. When a servant came to bring him supper, he gave the man so black a look as to send him frightened back; and during the rest of the night, no one ventured to approach the room. As the hours passed away, every sound was hushed, except the heavy thundering of the surf against the shore, and the whipping of the wind-driven foam against the windows. Once Sir Brian fancied he heard an outcry and a sobbing, as of a child in distress,--the voice of his little son; but by degrees the sobbing died away. In the early morning, as Sir Brian stood at the window, he saw the grey sea hurling itself at the bare coast, and the sea-gulls skimming and eddying amidst the bitter foam of the great breakers. The grey walls of Kildhurm Tower, which stood scarce a hundred paces from the shore, were hoary with clinging flakes of froth. Directly opposite the window where Sir Brian was standing, on the verge of the low headland, lay a heap of something that had not been there the evening before. Was it a mass of sea-wrack, cast up by the waves during the night? Sir Brian could not see clearly; the window-pane was dim with salt, and his eyes were heavy. He stealthily left the room, descended the staircase, and, bareheaded as he was, crossed the wind-swept breadth of turf that intervened between the tower and the headland. There lay the body of his wife, face downwards, with arms outstretched, and hands that clutched the turf. It was a spot to which she had often come to sit, and to gaze for hours westward across the waves towards Mona, where she was born. Sir Brian stood looking down at her, as he had stood by that other dead body the day before. He had been the death of them both. At first, indeed, he did not quite believe that she was dead. He watched for some movement of those fingers which clutched so sharply into the turf, those soft white fingers that yesterday had been so tremulous. But there was no tremor in them now; they were rigid as iron: the wind that fluttered her garments could not stir them. Poor little hands! Perhaps, after all, Sir Brian had not pressed them so lovingly, or so often as he might have done. He remembered how, sometimes when they had touched his hair or his cheek, he had moodily disregarded their touch, or had brushed them impatiently away. What hands would caress him now? 'Hadst thou not failed in thy duty as a husband;' and again: 'Mayst thou slip and stumble in the blood which thou hast this day shed!' Those were words which could never be unspoken. And yet Sir Brian waited beside the body, as if he expected it to arise and speak to him.