The heaving sea stretched itself out before her eyes; the dead of the past ages were mouldering away beneath her feet; the canopy of sky, studded with stars in its vast expanse, lay above her head. But for all these signs, and the thoughts they involved, Mary Ursula Castlemaine might in that moment have lost heart and courage. The by-ways of life seemed very crooked just then; its troubles pregnant with perplexity and pain. But God was over all. The turbulent waves were held in check by His Hand; the long-ago dead had been called by Him; the sky and the stars were but emblems of His power. Yes, He was over all. From His throne in Heaven He looked down on the world; on its cares, its trials, its weaknesses, its temptations and sins; overruling all according to His will. He could set things straight; He was full of compassion, long-suffering, and mercy. The dark troubles here would be merged in a bright hereafter: in a place where there should be no cankering heart-break, where sorrow and suffering should flee away. A few more years, and---- "Dear me, ma'am! I beg your pardon." Mary Ursula, buried in her far-off thoughts in the solitary place, was startled at the address, and turned round with a slight cry. Close at her elbow stood John Bent; a small basket in his band, covered with a white cloth. "I'm sure I frightened you, ma'am!" "Just for the moment you did," she said, with her sweet smile, interrupting his farther apologies. "I was standing to take a look at the sea. How grand it is from this spot!" John Bent agreed that it was grand, and proceeded to explain his presence. His wife had dispatched him with some broth and other trifles that might be acceptable to the sick woman up at the coastguard station. In passing the chapel ruins on his way thither, he had caught sight of some one standing at the edge of the cliff, and turned in at once to see who it was. "No wonder you did not hear me, ma'am, for I crept up on tiptoe," he acknowledged. "Since the disappearance of Mr. Anthony Castlemaine, this place is just as though it haunted me, for it is never out of my mind. To see somebody standing here in the shade of the corner wall gave me a turn. I could not imagine who it was, and meant to pounce upon 'em." "The place lies on my mind also," said Mary Ursula. "I wish the doings of that night could be brought to light." The landlord shook his head, she could not wish it as he wished it. "I don't think now it ever will be," he said. "At least, I often fear it will not. There is only one person, as I believe, who could throw light upon it; and it does not seem to be his pleasure to speak." She knew that he alluded to her uncle; and she seized on the moment for speaking a few words that she had long wished to speak to John Bent. In spite of the opinion he held, and that she knew he held, in regard to that past night, she respected the man greatly: she remembered how much her father had respected him.