It was so strange to think that Nan was a little way along there; and that there was still a chance that that same Nan--the wonder of the world with whose going away from him the world had got quite altered somehow--might still be his! It bewildered him as yet. To think of Nan at Kingscourt!--her presence filling the house with sunlight; charming everybody with her quiet, humorous ways, and her self-possession, and her sweetness, and the faithfulness of her frank, clear eyes! And all his thinking came back to the one point. This was now Nan herself he had a chance of winning; not any imaginary Nan; not any substitute; not any vision to be wavering this way and that; but the very Nan herself. And if it was true--if the real Nan, after all, was to go hand-in-hand through life with him--where, of all the places in the world, should they first go to together? To that far-away inn at Splugen, surely! Now it would be his own Nan who would sit at the small table, and laugh with her shining, clear eyes. She would walk with him up the steep Pass; the sunlight on her pink cheeks; he would hear the chirp of her boots on the wet snow. Amid all this wild whirl of hope and doubt and delightful assurance, it was hard to have to wait for an opportunity of speaking to Nan alone. He would not go to the house, lest there should be visitors, or some one staying there; he would rather catch Nan on one of her pilgrimages in the country or along the downs, with solitude and silence to aid him in his prayer. But that chance seemed far off. He watched for Nan incessantly; and his sharp sailor's eyes followed her keenly, while he kept at a considerable distance. But Nan seemed to be very busy at this time. Again and again he was tempted to speak to her as she came out of this or that shop, or when he saw her carrying an armful of toys into some small back street. But he was afraid. There was so much to win; so much to lose. He guessed that sooner or later the vagrant blood in Nan would drive her to seek the solitariness of the high cliffs over the sea. It turned out differently, however. One squally and stormy morning he saw her leave the house, her ulster buttoned up, her hat well down over her brows. He let her pass the hotel, and slipped out afterwards. By and by she turned up into the town, and finally entered a stationer's shop, where there was a public library. No doubt she had merely come to order some books, he said to himself, downheartedly, and would go straight back again. However, on coming out, he noticed her glance up at the driven sky, where the clouds were breaking here and there. Then she went down East Street towards the sea. Then she passed the Aquarium by the lower road. This he could not understand at all, as she generally kept to the cliffs.