The Rieben skirting the sea, within sound of it, frustrated by its tides, brackish with its salt, but still apart, always reminded Roger of Lady Louisa. She too had drawn very near, but could not reach the merciful sea of death. A narrow ridge of aching life, arid as the high shingle barrier, constrained her, brackish month by month, from her only refuge. But Roger could no more have expressed such an idea in words than he could have knitted the cable-topped shooting-stockings which Janey made him, and which he had on at this moment. The carriage in front had stopped at a lonely homestead among the gorse. On a low knoll at a little distance fronting the marsh stood an old stone cross. Mrs. Stoddart and Mr. Stirling had already taken to their feet, and were climbing slowly through the gorse up the sandy path which led to the Holy Well. Roger and Annette left the dogcart and followed them. Presently Mr. Stirling gave Mrs. Stoddart his hand. Roger timidly offered his to Annette. She did not need it, but she took it. His shyness stood him in good stead. She had known bolder advances. Hand in hand, with beating hearts, they went, and as they walked the thin veil which hides the enchanted land from lonely seekers was withdrawn. With awed eyes they saw "that new world which is the old" unfold itself before them, and smiled gravely at each other. The little pink convolvulus creeping in the thin grass made way for them. The wild St. John's wort held towards them its tiny golden stars. The sea mews, flapping slowly past with their feet hanging, cried them good luck; and the thyme clinging close as moss to the ground, sent them delicate greeting, "like dawn in Paradise." Annette forgot that a year ago she had for a few hours seen a mirage of this ecstasy before, and it had been but a mirage. She forgot that the day might not be far distant when this kindly man, this transfigured fellow-traveller, might leave her, when he who treated her now with reverence, delicate as the scent of the thyme, might not be willing to make her his wife, as that other man had not been willing. But how could she do otherwise than forget? For when our eyes are opened, and the promised land lies at our feet, the most faithless of us fear no desertion, the most treacherous no treachery, the coldest no inconstancy, the most callous no wound; much less guileless souls like poor unwise Annette. She had told Mrs. Stoddart that she would never trust anyone again, and then had trusted her implicitly. She had told herself that she would never love again, and she loved Roger.