She stopped and gazed into the fire. The waters of the Channel ran in sunlit ripples before her eyes; the red rocks of Bigbury Bay curved warmly out on her right and her left; further away the towering headlands loomed misty in the hot, still August air. A white yacht, her sails hardly drawing, moved slowly westwards; the black smoke of a steamer stained the sky far out; and on the beach there were just two figures visible--herself and the man who had not meant to speak. "We parted at once," she went on. "He was appointed a consul in West Africa. I think--indeed I know--that he hoped to rise more quickly that way. But trouble came and he was killed. Because of that one hour, you see, when he spoke what he did not mean to speak, he was killed." It seemed that there was the whole story told. But Pamela had not told it all, and never did; for her mother had played a part in its unfolding. It was Mrs. Mardale's ambition that her daughter should make a great marriage; it was her daughter's misfortune that she knew little of her daughter's character. Mrs. Mardale had remarked the growing friendship between Pamela and the man, she had realised that marriage was quite impossible, and she had thought, with her short-sighted ingenuity, that if Pamela fell in love and found love to be a thing of fruitless trouble, she would come the sooner to take a sensible view of the world and marry where marriage was to her worldly advantage. She thus had encouraged the couple to a greater friendliness, throwing them together when she could have hindered their companionship; she had even urged Pamela to accept that invitation to Devonshire, knowing who would be the other guests. She was disappointed afterwards when Pamela did not take the sensible view; but she did not blame herself at all. For she knew nothing of the suffering which her plan had brought about. Pamela had kept her secret. Even the months of ill-health which followed upon that first season had not opened the mother's eyes, and certainly she never suspected the weary nights of sleeplessness and aching misery which Pamela endured. Some hint of the pain of that bad past time, however, Pamela now gave to Warrisden. "I stayed as much at home in Leicestershire as possible," she said. "You see there were my horses there; but even with them I was very lonely. The time was long in passing, and it wasn't pleasant to think that there would be so much of it yet, before it passed altogether. I went up to London for the season each year, and I went out a great deal. It helped me to keep from thinking." The very simplicity with which she spoke gave an intensity to her words. There was no affectation in Pamela Mardale. Warrisden was able to fill out her hints, to understand her distress.