She was loth to go with this wreck of things at her feet, but in her destitution of heart she was afraid to stay. Armed with the promise, she would have cared nothing for dark or tide, but with this weight at her heart it seemed as if it would take her all the night to cross the sand. She tried to believe that she would return to wrestle with Sarah in the day, but she knew well enough that she would never return. Eliza, and all that Eliza had meant in their spoiled lives, lay like a poisonous snake across her path. She wondered drearily what had become of the passionate certainty with which she had set out. The sea still sundered her lover and herself, the bar of the sea so much greater than any possible stretch of land. There were people to whom the sea was a sort of curse, and perhaps, without knowing it, she was one of those. She loved it, indeed, but she never forgot that it had taken her first hope. Perhaps it mocked at her love as Sarah had mocked her love. Perhaps it was only waiting out in the dark to do her harm.... She made one last entreating movement towards the shadow that was stone, but nobody moved in the darkness and nobody spoke. She could not be sure at that moment whether Sarah was there, or whether all that she begged of was merely blackened space. Then she began by degrees to move away, wrenching her feet, as it were, from the ground of the yard. Sadly, without looking back, she mounted the sea-wall, bowed by her burden of failure and sorrow and self-contempt. But the fear took her again as soon as she faced the sands, and she hurried down the further side. The good angel of the Thornthwaites fled away into the night as if driven by flails. PART IV GEORDIE-AN’-JIM I The blackness stirred in the doorway and became human again, setting the door to the jamb with a firm, decisive push. Sarah followed the dark stone passage to the kitchen, moving with freedom on the ground she knew. In the bare, silent room, that seemed at the same time barer and yet more peopled because of the dusk, she took off her old mantle, her shabby bonnet and her black thread gloves. She set a lighted candle on the table in the middle of the room, and from the cupboard by the hearth she took paper and wood, and kindled a pale, unhomely glow in the dusty, ash-filled grate. In the outer darkness that was the scullery she filled the kettle, and brought it to wait the reluctant patronage of the fire. It was not yet night over the sands, but the candle was more than sufficient to quench the fainting effort of the day. The only outside light was the steady glow of the lamp, set in the face of the inn to call its daughter home.