The dark-robed monitress knelt in prayer beside her. That pious heart was wise and loving, and saw that no human aid could comfort this lorn girl fallen upon her care. When Rhoda was spent and still, she spoke: 'My child, if, indeed, we can no more pray God to keep that brave young life from sin and death, yet may we pray that his soul may win to peace and rest under the mercy of heaven. Nay, there is no need that you too should rise for kneeling. Lie down, lie down, for your body is over spent. Kneel before God in spirit.' There was long silence, and both prayed, till Rhoda faltered to the betrayal of her unregenerate heart: 'Was she so very fair indeed? Where is she laid? Take me--oh, let me once look upon her face.' 'It may not be. She lies a day buried, there without among our own dead--although--God only knows what she was.' Rhoda again would rise. 'Yet take me there. Night-time? Ah yes, night, night that will never pass.' At daybreak she stood, alone at her desire, beside a new-made grave, and knew that the body of Diadyomene lay beneath, and knew hardly less surely, that somewhere beneath the sea she overlooked the body of Christian lay. Nearest the sea was the grave on the windblown, barren cliff. No flower could bloom there ever, only close dun turf grew. Below stretched the broken, unquiet sea, fretted with rock and surf, deep chanting of the wind and moon. One white sea-bird was wheeling and pitching restlessly to and fro. She turned her eyes to the land far east for the thought of Lois. Over there a winter dawn flushes into rose, kindles bright and brighter, and a ruddy burnish takes the edges of flat cloud. Lo! the sun, and the grey sea has flecks of red gold and the sea-bird gleams. She cannot face it. Rhoda knelt down by the grave to pray. Presently she was lying face downward along the turf, and she whispered to the one lying face upward below. 'Ah! Diadyomene, ah! Margaret. God help me truly to forgive you for what you have done. 'I have tried. Because he asked it, I have torn out my heart praying for you. 'You fair thing! you were fairer than I, but you did not love him so well as I. 'Ah! ah! would it were I who lay down there under the quiet shelter of the turf; would it were you who lived, able to set up his honour and make his name fair before all men! 'Ah! ah! a dark rebuke the mystery of your life has brought; and the mystery of your death eats it in. 'Can you bear to be so silent, so silent, nor deliver a little word? 'When you rise, Diadyomene, when the dead from the sea rise, speak loud, speak very loud, for all to hear. 'He loved you! He loved you!' The sod above the face of Diadyomene was steeped with the piercing tears of Rhoda. 'He loved you!' came many times as she sobbed.