Then, bit by bit, it was borne in on Danny that his great, strong, simple love could never be returned; and this was the last stage of his affection. The idea of love had itself been hard to realize, but much harder to understand was the strange and solemn idea of unrequited passion. Twenty times had Mona tried in vain to convey this idea to his mind without doing violence to the tenderness of the lad's nature. But that which no artifice could achieve time itself accomplished. Danny began to stay away from the cottage on the "brew," and when, in pity for that unspeakable sorrow which Mona herself knew but too well, the girl asked him why he did not come up as often as before, he answered, "I'm thinking it's not me you're wanting up there." And Danny felt as if the words would choke him. Then the whole world, which had seemed brighter, or at least less cruel, became bathed in gloom. The lad haunted the seashore. The moan of the long dead sea seemed to speak to him in a voice not indeed of cheer but of comforting grief. The white curves of the breakers had something in them that suited better with his mood than the sunlit ripples of a summer sea. The dapple-gray clouds that scudded across the leaden sky, the chill wind that scattered the salt spray and whistled along the gunwale of his boat, the mist, the scream of the sea-bird--all these spoke to his desolate heart in an inarticulate language that was answered by tears. Poor Danny, a hurricane had uprooted the only idol of your soul, and for you the one flower of life, the flower of love, was torn up and withered forever! Love? Yes, even the image of a happy love had at length stood up for one moment before his mind, even before his mind. That love itself might have been possible to him, yes, possible to such a one as he was, though laughed at--"rigged" as he called it--here, there, and everywhere--this was the blessed vision of one brief instant. He thought of how he might have clasped her hands by the bright sea, and looked lovingly into her eyes. But no, no, no; not for him had God sent the gracious love, and Danny turned in his dumb despair to the cold winter sea, shrinking from every human face. "Is there not a storm coming?" said Mona to Danny, as she and Ruby overtook the boy on the shore that morning. "Ay, the long cat's tail was going off at a slant a while ago, and now the round thick skate yonder is hanging very low." As he spoke, Danny turned about and looked at the clouds which we have been taught to know by less homely names. "Danny, Danny," interrupted the little one, "what is that funny thing you told me the sailors say when the wind is getting up?" "'Davy's putting on the coppers for the parson,'" answered the lad, absently, and without the semblance of a smile. For the twentieth time Ruby laughed and crowed over the dubious epigram.