“Thank you, Lady; you have a pleasant and kind voice, with music in it such as I have not heard for many a day. You are sorry for me, but you know not half my woes; I have never told them to any human ear; although at times, when I have been all alone--upon the treeless prairie, not knowing whether I was on the right track or lost, or on the mountain-top in strange and savage lands, and chiefly when a solitary man on shipboard, keeping watch while others slept--then have I spoken of these things aloud, and asked of Heaven why it used me so. But now--as some black cloud will overpass a mighty plain, and never shed a drop, but presently, on coming on a little valley fenced with round green hills, will straight, dissolve in rain, so I, who have been so silent for so long, am moved to speak by you. What magic is this you bear about you, woman? Let me see your face.” “There is no need for that, sir,” answered my Lady, stepping back, and motioning with her arm with dignity. “The magic of which you speak lies only in a feeling heart and an attentive ear. If it is any comfort to you to tell your story, I will gladly listen to it.” “Yes, it seems to be a comfort,” replied the other thoughtfully, “although I never cared to speak of it before. You see me, Lady, now, a brawling, drunken wretch--upon whose reckless soul there may be murder, to-morrow or next day, as like as not--but anyhow a broken man. I was not always thus. When I was young, I was a hopeful and hard-working lad enough--only a little thoughtless. I was honest, too, notwithstanding that the law and I fell out; but I was fond of jovial company and good liquor, and what I got at sea--for I had a smack of my own at Bleamouth--that I spent very quickly on shore. If I had had a wife, or even a mother, I think it might have been different; but I had no relations, or at least none who were my friends. I could not bear advice, and much less interference and dictation, and so, you see, I was alone in the world--until I met with Lucy Meade---- You shiver, my Lady. Am I keeping you too long in the night-air?” Lady Lisgard shook her head, and murmured: “No; go on.” “'Tis thirty years ago this very year--that's many thousand days, and tens of thousand leagues have I sailed since then--and yet, I swear, it seems but yesterday I crossed those water-meadows with my gun--for I was after moorfowl--and came upon her cottage on the Blea. White-walled, white-roofed--for in those parts they paint them so--it nestled under a rocky hill, crested with heather; and in front the river ran, swollen with recent rains, through a broad weedy flat, and so, between the rounded sand-hills, to the sea. Before the cottage was a porch with honeysuckles trained upon it, and one full-flowering fuchsia upon either side. Then, as I drew near, I saw her sitting in the porch mending her father's net. Ah, Heaven, I see her now!”