from one year to another. It was a bad place for landing, and its ill-repute for this amongst the fishermen had long kept it untroubled for her and the blue-rocks and the rock-martins.
She had never dreaded disturbance there. She stood with wide-opened angry eyes staring on him, the rope slipping through her hand, the sea water running from her kilted skirt and shining feet, the west wind blowing the dusky gold of her curls, her cheeks warm with exertion and the cold sea air till they glowed like the damask of the autumn rose.
'Why did you come back?' she said, with a sombre wrath in her voice. 'I told you to go away; I told you to stay away.'
'I could not obey you,' said Sanctis gently. 'I have been away five months and more. I strove against the wish to return, since I knew that I should be unwelcome to you. But at last, the thought of you all alone now that winter is so nigh overcame my resolution. I could not stay on in ease and mirth and luxury in Paris and think of you in the wild weather dependent on chance for bread.'
He looked at her wistfully. She seemed
