To the wayfarer along the coast-road towards the quaint village of Endellion (with its weather-beaten church, and the ivied ruins of Rhoscarrock), that white-walled villa with its rose covered peristyle buried among the pale-green drooping willows from which the locality takes its Cornish name, no better example of peace, content and quiet could be given. Yet the place was fated to be one of anxiety and sorrow. Seated at a little buhl escritoire in her drawing-room, Constance was lingering over the last letter from her husband, after the removal of the tea equipage, and long after Sybil had set out on her charitable mission to the fisherman's widow. "Richard is very long of returning, surely!" was her prevailing thought, as she sat with her graceful head resting on a white and dimpled hand, quite unconscious that the sun had set beyond the sea, and that the shades of evening were deepening around her. No upbraiding thought of that absent husband entered the gentle heart of Constance; yet with all that heart's gentleness, she could not but think somewhat bitterly of the late Lord Lamorna, whose unreasonable prejudices and pride of birth and station, though only the result, the growth and maturity of centuries of time, and many generations of Trevelyans, had cost her years of anxiety, of unmerited seclusion and wandering in foreign lands under a name which was not that of her children's father, and thus keeping them in ignorance of their real family, its claims and rank--for the mystery had been continued, even to the gazetting of Denzil, under the name of Devereaux! The rising wind as a sudden gust swept through the grove of willows, roused her from these thoughts, and she found old Winny Braddon, hard-featured and keen-eyed, lingering near, with anxiety depicted in her face. "The winter is setting in early, surely," said Constance; "we are not out of autumn yet, Winny, and see how dark the evening has become!" "_En hâv perkou gwâv_, my mother used to say, old Cornish for 'in summer, remember winter,'" replied Winny. "A sad night it will be for the poor fellows on board ship, ma'am, I fear." "Do not say so, Winny!" "The waves are rolling in fast, and breaking white as snow upon Tintagel Head, and all along Trebarreth Strand." "And where is Miss Devereaux?" "I know not, ma'am--only she has not returned." "And she was to come by the shore!" exclaimed Constance, starting from her seat. "The shore! do you mean the bit of sand that lies near the Pixies' Hole?" "Yes--yes." "The tide has long since been in--my God! oh mistress, our poor _chealveen_ may be lost!" exclaimed Winny, using the old endearing local word for 'child.'