The young man had completed four-fifths of the ascent of Mount Gabriel, from the Dunmanus side, and sat now on a moss-capped boulder, nominally meditating upon the splendors of the panorama spread out before him, but in truth thinking deeply of other things. He had not brought a gun, this time, but had in his hand a small, brand-new hammer, with which, from time to time, to point the shifting phases of his reverie, he idly tapped the upturned sole of the foot resting on his knee. From this coign of vantage he could make out the white walls and thatches of at least a dozen hamlets, scattered over the space of thrice as many miles. Such of these as stood inland he did not observe a second time. There were others, more distant, which lay close to the bay, and these he studied intently as he mused, his eyes roaming along the coast-line from one to another in baffled perplexity. There was nothing obscure, about them, so far as his vision went. Everything--the innumerable croft-walls dividing the wretched land below him into holdings; the dark umber patches where the bog had been cut; the serried layers of gray rock sloping transversely down the mountain-side, each with its crown of canary-blossomed furze; the wide stretches of desolate plain beyond, where no human habitation could be seen, yet where he knew thousands of poor creatures lived, all the same, in moss-hidden hovels in the nooks of the rocks; the pale sheen on the sea still further away, as it slept in the sunlight at the feet of the cliffs--everything was as sharp and distinct as the picture in a telescope. But all this did not help him to guess where the young woman in the broad, black hat lived. Bernard had thought a great deal about this young woman during the forty-eight hours which had elapsed since she stood up in the boat and waved her hand to him in farewell. In a guarded way he had made some inquiries at Goleen, where he was for the moment domiciled, but only to learn that people on the east side of the peninsula are conscious of no interest whatever in the people reputed to live on the west side. They are six or eight Irish miles apart, and there is high land between them. No one in Goleen could tell him anything about a beautiful dark young woman with a broad, black hat. He felt that they did not even properly imagine to themselves what he meant. In Goleen the young women are not beautiful, and they wear shawls on their heads, not hats. Then he had conceived the idea of investigating the west shore for himself. On the map in his guide-book this seemed a simple enough undertaking, but now, as he let his gaze wander again along the vast expanse of ragged and twisted coast-line, he saw that it would mean the work of many days. And then--then he saw something else--a vision which fairly took his breath away.