“Yes, papa,” said Marjory, with a little start; and a minute after, Fanshawe, at the window, saw the old man go out, with his head upon his breast, to the misty cliff that lay before the windows. He stood still there for some moments, with his tall figure relieved against the forlorn blackness of the waves and the woolly mist, his white hair and the skirts of his coat blowing in the wind; and then he took the rocky path down the side of the cliff, which led to the beach. It seemed to be natural that he should choose such a day to go abroad in, a hopeless day, when the sun and the light were obscured, when the wind searched to the marrow of the bones, and the mist crept into the throat, and the sea moaned and complained among its rocks. Fanshawe stood and watched him as long as he could see him. The very air and water seemed to sigh “Waes me!” like the old serving-man who loved the house. “Mr. Fanshawe,” said Marjory, from the recess, “is there anything to be done for you? We are dull, and we cannot help it. None of us are good for anything. I should like to ask you to walk with us; but it is an easterly haar, and that is bad on our coast; and riding would be still worse; and it is too late, even if the weather were not so bad, to go to St. Andrews, as Uncle Charles proposed--” “Never mind me,” said Fanshawe, with some shame. “You must think me a man of few resources, and so, I fear, I am. I am good for nothing. I have got out of the way of reading. It is a horrible confession, but it is true. The only thing that suggests itself to me on such a day is, if not to walk, yet to talk.” “Let us talk, then,” said Marjory, closing the blotting-book in which she had been writing her letters. She said it, he thought, with a sort of half contempt, as if this insignificant occupation of talk was a kind of idleness, and beneath her ordinary activity; and then, as was natural after such a conclusion had been come to, a dead silence supervened. Mr. Fanshawe broke it with a laugh. “I fear you despise talking,” he said; “and conversation is a thing which cannot be done of _malice prepense_. May we have some music instead? There is music enough there in your case to last a life-time, much less an afternoon.” “Music!” said Marjory, somewhat startled. “To be sure,” she added, with a smile, “music is not merry-making, as our poor folk fancy. It does not need to be the voice of mirth; and now you suggest it, there are few things that would express one’s feelings so well--the forlorn, confused, oppressed--” She paused, with tears rising, which got into her throat and her eyes, and stifled her words. “But I must not, Mr. Fanshawe. It would shock everybody. My poor father would think me mad, and I cannot tell what the servants would say. It would seem to them the very height of heartlessness.” “No, no,” said Mr. Charles, from his corner; “no, May, my dear; no music. I could not put up with that.”