"The churchyard was a square flat, surrounded on all sides by a low stone wall, beyond which the fields sloped down to the mouth of a river that widened into the sea at a little distance from Kylmington, but which hereabouts had a very dingy melancholy look when the tide was out, as it was to-night. "There was no living creature except myself in the churchyard as I came out of the shadow of the trees on to the flat, where the grass grew long among the unpretending headstones. "I looked at all the newest stones till I came at last to one standing in the obscurest corner of the churchyard, almost hidden by the low wall. "There was a very brief inscription on this modest headstone; but it was enough to tell me whose ashes lay buried under the spot on which I stood. _"To the Memory of J. W. Who died December 19, 1853. 'Lord have mercy upon me, a sinner!'_ "I was still looking at this brief memorial, when I heard a woman's dress rustling upon the long rank grass, and turning suddenly, saw my darling coming towards me, very pale, very pensive, but with a kind of seraphic resignation upon her face which made her seem to me more beautiful than I had ever seen her before. "She started at seeing me, but did not faint. She only grew paler than she had been before, and pressed her two hands on her breast, as if to still the sudden tumult of her heart. "I made her take my arm and lean upon it, and we walked up and down the narrow path talking until the last low line of light faded out of the dusky sky. "All that I could say to her was scarcely enough to shake her resolution—to uproot her conviction that her father's guilt was an insurmountable barrier between us. But when I told her of my broken life—when, in the earnestness of my pleading, she perceived the proof of a constancy that no time could shake, I could see that she wavered. "'I only want you to be happy, Clement,' she said. 'My former life has been such an unhappy one, that I tremble at the thought of linking it to yours. The shame, Clement—think of _that_. How will you answer people when they ask you the name of your wife?' "'I will tell them that she has no name, but that which she has honoured by accepting from me. I will tell them that she is the noblest and dearest of women, and that her history is a story of unparalleled virtue and devotion!' "I sent a telegraphic message to my mother early the next morning; and in the afternoon the dear soul arrived at Kylmington to embrace her future daughter. We sat late in the little parlour of the Hermitage; a dreary cottage, looking out on the flat shore, half sand, half mud, and the low water lying in greenish pools. Margaret told us of her father's penitence.