Yes! she did accuse herself. The warnings and hints of Winny Braddon came to memory. She had been remiss; she had permitted Sybil to wander too much abroad with her sketch-book, and this was the end of it; yet who, without some divine prescience, could have foreseen a catastrophe so terrible? How often had Denzil filled her mind with fear and anxiety by his exploits among those very rocks, and by his explorations of that horrible Pixies Hole, where, too probably, his sister had perished miserably; yet her bold and handsome Denzil, always came back in safety to kiss and laugh away her fears and upbraidings. "Oh why is this terrible calamity put upon me?" she moaned, as she lay with her face covered by her hands, and her damp dishevelled hair; "is it but the forerunner of a greater--if a _greater_ there can be? Can I have loved my husband and our children so much that I have forgotten to love my God!" And for a moment or two, she actually turned over in her mind this strange idea--the first proposition of the Mystics, which was, that the love of the Supreme Being must be pure and disinterested; that is, exempt from all views of interest, all care of those we love on earth, and all hope of reward--tenets defended by Madame de Guyon, and advocated by the eloquent Fénélon. A sudden knocking at the front door, and a violent pealing of the house-bell, caused her to start as if with an electric shock. Tidings had come at last--tidings that might fill her soul with joy, or cause it to die within her. "General Trecarrel, would speak with you ma'am," said Winny Braddon, hurrying in with fresh excitement in her tone and manner. CHAPTER XIV. LOST. The stranger who had called to Sybil by name, and who had recognised her from the summit of the cliff, was no other than General Trecarrel, the same whom her parents had so studiously avoided; but who nevertheless knew her well by sight, having seen her on many occasions when riding abroad, and on Sundays at church, whither she always drove in her little pony phaeton, and he had always admired her beauty greatly. The General was not a very old man; he was still looking for another command in India, and though in affluent circumstances was yet an enthusiastic soldier, who believed that military rank and stars and ribbons, were the only things in this world worth living for. He was nearly six feet in height--erect as a pike, and well built; his features were handsome, his eyes dark and keen; his complexion was well bronzed and dark, his short shorn hair was becoming grey and grizzled, and his manner, by force of habit, and the air to command, was brief and authoritative.