Molly had been shaking her head vigorously. “No, sir! oh no, sir!” she now cried eagerly. “There’s nobody about but our own folks as has worked for us ever sin’ I can remember; and there’s nobody in this house but my father and mysel’, and old Winny the servant, and my sweetheart there.” “Oh!” said the officer, laughing, “that’s your sweetheart, is it? He seems a likely lad. Why isn’t he out fighting for his country?” “Oh, please sir, I couldn’t spare him!” cried Molly, laughing with white lips. “It ’ud fair break my heart if anything was to happen to him.” Her feigned laughter was strangled by her sobs. Her father uttered a groan, and let his head drop forward into his hands. “Dom they raskil Frenchies!” he cried: “they’n been and killed my only son!” “Come, men,” said the officer, “we’ll take ourselves off. This is not a likely place for a French prisoner to take refuge in. You’d soon give him up, wouldn’t you, Mr Rainford?” Joe Rain ford raised his head and looked at him steadily. “Yo’n heerd what my lass telled yo’,” he said, doggedly; “there isn’t nobry here, nobbut me, and her,—and her sweetheart!” THROUGH THE COTTAGE WINDOW THE gable end of the cottage faced the shore, and I first became conscious of the window by the sudden appearance of a faint light behind its narrow panes. It was a stormy evening, the wind sweeping down between the dunes in sudden gusts that caught up the sand from their steep sides—which were indeed but sparsely covered with stargrass—and sent it driving seawards in blinding eddies. I had wandered overlong about the damp stretch of shore that bordered the remains of the submarine forest, interested first by the curious contrasts of colour to be noticed there—the silvery sweep of sand sloping downwards to the dusky purplish brown of the remnants aforesaid, in the irregular surface of which little pools and rivulets of water reflected the sky; the blue-green of the star-grass interspersed with patches of dwarf willows and bilberry plants, the foliage of which at this season had taken on a variety of tints. Later on, when the tide had come roaring and leaping in, I had been attracted by the magnificence of its fury, and had watched wave after wave roll towards me, gathering and swelling as though with suppressed rage, and finally breaking with a boom that went echoing through the hills, while the spray dashed ever higher and higher. Fascinated as I had been by the sight, I did not notice that the early autumnal sunset was over, until a sudden roller, more adventurous than its fellows, came rushing to my very feet, and, turning hurriedly to escape from it, I observed that the world behind me was wrapped in gloom, save for the lingering glare at the horizon. Almost at the moment that I became aware of the approach of night, I became also conscious that the gusts of wind before alluded to no longer carried stinging clouds of sand