"No," he said firmly just as the wind had hurled itself with redoubled fury against the house; "no, she does not give me a second thought. But I take heart of grace, for I can feel that she has never had that gentle little heart troubled by such thoughts. The Frenchman has not won her, and he never shall if I can help it. It's a fair race for both of us, and only one can win." "My word! What a night!" He walked to the window and looked out at the sombre sky, and listened to the roar of the rumbling billows before closing his casement and ringing. "Is all fastened?" he said to the servant. "You need not sit up. I don't believe a dog would be out to-night, let alone a human being." He was wrong; for just as he spoke a dark figure encased in oilskins was sturdily making its way down the cliff path to the town. It was hard work and in places on the exposed cliff-side even dangerous, for the wind seemed to pounce upon the figure and try to tear it off; but after a few moments' pause the walk was continued, the town reached, and the wind-swept street traversed without a soul being passed. The figure passed on by the wharves and warehouses, and sheltered now from the wind made good way till, some distance ahead, a door was opened, a broad patch of light shone out on the wet cobble stones, Crampton's voice said "Good night," and the figure drew back into a deep doorway, and waited. The old clerk had been to the principal inn, where, once a week, he visited his club, and drank one glass of Hollands and water, and smoked one pipe, talking mostly to one friend, to whom if urged he would relate one old story. This was his one dissipation; and afterwards he performed one regular duty which took him close up to the watching figure, which remained there almost breathless till Crampton had performed his regular duty and gone home. It was ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before he passed that watching figure, which seemed to have sunk away in the darkness that grew more dense as the gale increased. Morning at last, a slowly breaking dawn, and with it the various sea-going men slowly leaving their homes, to direct their steps in a long procession towards one point, where the high cliff face formed a shelter from the south-west wind, and the great billows which rolled heavily in beneath the leaden sky. These came on with the regularity of machinery, to charge the cliffs at which they leaped with a hiss and a roar, and a boom like thunder, followed by a peculiar rattling, grumbling sound, as if the peal of thunder had been broken up into heavy pieces which were rolling over each other back toward the sea. They were not pieces of thunder but huge boulders, which had been rolled over and over for generations to batter the cliffs, and then fall back down an inclined plane.