But many weary hours of noise and pleasureless excitement had to be worn away, ere the party with whom Elizabeth came to Dunwich would agree to return. Elizabeth's remonstrances, entreaties, and anger were alike unheeded by the companions of her voyage. She had haughtily rejected every overture on the part of Arthur toward a reconciliation, and declined to receive fairings or attentions of any kind from him, to manifest her indignant sense of the slight she had experienced from him in the early part of the day; and Arthur had retorted by paying his court very ostentatiously to Joan Bates. Elizabeth, neglected and alone, strayed from her party, and sought a solitary nook among the ivied ruins of a monastic pile, whose rifted arches overhung the verge of the lofty cliff, where she indulged in floods of tears, casting from time to time her wistful glances toward Southwold, whose verdant cliffs looked so calm and peaceful in the mellow lights of a glowing sunset; but it was not till those cliffs were silvered by the rising moon that the tide served for the return of the boats. At length, Elizabeth heard her name vociferated by many individuals of her party, and felt sorely mortified at the publicity thus given to the fact of her being at a forbidden place. Ashamed to raise her voice in reply, yet painfully anxious to return to her deserted home, she hastened from her retreat among the ruins, and ran eagerly toward the steep narrow path that led to the beach. On the way she encountered Arthur Blackbourne, evidently the worse for his revels. "Where have you been wandering about by yourself?" cried he, seizing her roughly by the arm. "You have used me very ill to-day, Arthur," said she, bursting into tears. "You are jealous and out of temper," was the reply. "Where is my brother Edward?" sobbed Elizabeth, for she could not trust her voice with a rejoinder to this taunt. "In the boat, and if you do not make haste, we shall lose the tide." "I have suffered enough for my disobedience to my father as it is," said Elizabeth; "and oh, what will he say to me on my return from this disgraceful expedition!" "There is no time to think of that now," rejoined Arthur, as they proceeded to the boat in mutual displeasure with each other. Elizabeth perceived with alarm, that boatmen and passengers alike were in the same state of inebriation which was only too evident in Arthur. The beach was now a scene of tumultuous bustle; a crowd of boats were putting off for Southwold, Walberswick, and all the other places along the coast for which the wind and tide served. "Young woman," said an experienced Dunwich mariner who had been regarding Elizabeth with much interest, "which boat are you going in." "The Queen Anne of Southwold," was the reply. "Take an old man's counsel and go not in her to-night. She is too full of riotous head strong people, and those who ought to be the most cool and considerate there are the worst."