When she returned to the Cliff, Katherine did not go in, but went along the edge of the path, as she had done so often when she had anything in her mind. All her thinkings had taken place there in the days when she had often felt lonely and “out of it,” when Stella was in the ascendant and everything had rolled on in accordance with her lively views. She had gone there with so many people to show them “the view,” who cared nothing for the view, and had lingered afterwards while they returned to more noisy joys, to think with a little sigh that there was someone in the world, though she knew not where, who might have preferred to linger with her, but had been sent away from her, never to be seen more. And then there had been the night of Stella’s escapade in the little yacht, and then of Stella’s second flight with her husband, and of many a day beside when Katherine’s heart had been too full to remain quietly indoors, and when the space, the sky, the sea, had been her consolers. She went there now, and with a languor which was half of the mind and half of the body walked up and down the familiar way. The tamarisks were beginning to show a little pink flush against the sea. It was not warm enough yet to develop the blossom wholly, but yet it showed with a tinge of colour against the blue, and all the flowering shrubs were coming into blossom and flowers were in every crevice of the rocks. It was the very end of April when it is verging into May, and the air was soft and full of the sweetness of the spring.