RACHEL.
Illness and sorrow had done their work upon Randolph Grey. He was so altered, that his best friends would scarce have known him; for the mental was even greater than the physical change. The depression of his spirits was such, that it appeared as if nothing could rouse him. Formerly cordial and warm-hearted, he now exhibited a morbid desire for solitude, and shunned all those who had been the companions of his happier days. This might be, in part, attributable to impaired health, but cause and effect were closely allied, and if bodily weakness tended to depress his spirits, their depression effectually impeded the recovery of his strength. His physician recommended change of air and scene, and adverted to the bracing effects of sea-breezes, and the patient acquiesced with more readiness than might have been expected from his now habitual apathy.
But Captain Grey himself had become weary of remaining in town; his spirit turned with loathing from the turmoil of the great city. He longed to escape, not only from every face he knew, but from the unknown myriads whose very existence in his vicinity seemed to him an oppression and a constraint. His place of abode by the sea was not prescribed; he would seek it where he might be most secure of the solitude for which he longed. He decided upon a small fishing village on the Cornish coast, not far from the Land's End; nor could he have found a place that better answered his requirements. There was not even a gentleman's house within a distance of several miles, and the village itself consisted merely of fishermen's huts, diversified by one small general shop, which was also the post-office, to which letters came in small numbers and at rare intervals, the school, the church, the parsonage, and a farm-house in which Randolph Grey found board and lodging. The scenery was bare, but bold and romantic; and there was a fine rocky beach, where he could wander or sit for hours when not disposed to breast the waves in one of the fishing-smacks. Such a residence would answer perfectly for the two or three weeks that he intended to devote to the dreary luxury of perfect solitude; for solitude peopled with sad thoughts is dreary indeed.
Four or five days passed, or were dreamed away by him, chiefly in sitting on the beach and gazing listlessly upon the rolling of the waves. He had loved them as a child, but their monotonous murmur failed to soothe him, for with it mingled the voices of those who had brightened existence to him in those early days, and from whom the separation, by death, absence, or estrangement, made it so gloomy now. As he gazed and listened, he grew more sad, more listless, more desponding. The loneliness he had sought oppressed him, yet he knew it not, and shrunk but the more morbidly even from the sight of the poor fishermen of the coast.
One evening he was sitting on the beach, beneath the shadow of a projecting rock, immersed as usual in his gloomy musings, when his attention was arrested by the unwelcome sound of an approaching footstep. He turned, and to his surprise, beheld a female figure advancing along the rocks which jutted out beyond the spot where he was seated into a kind of promontory, against the extreme point of which the advancing tide was beginning to ripple.
His first impulse was to retreat at once, but he was checked by the reflection that the rock beneath which he sat would doubtless conceal him, whereas if he rose he should be exposed to view; and, moreover, with his attention had been aroused some spark of latent curiosity, which induced him to stay and watch the movements of the stranger. She was not one of the peasant women of the district; her dress, though simple, as befitted the crags and waves amidst which it was worn, was evidently that of a gentlewoman. He could only conclude her to be the wife of the clergyman. With a light, firm step she advanced along the jagged rocks till she had reached the end of the little promontory. There she sat down. A slight, very slight, breeze came in from the sea, and she took off her bonnet and turned to meet it, as if to let it play the more freely around her brow. He could now see her face plainly. It gave him the impression of one recovering from recent illness; for though still young it was pale, and looked worn and almost haggard. She sate for some time with folded hands, gazing fixedly out to seaward; her countenance growing ever sadder as she gazed. At length he heard a long deep-drawn sigh, and, turning away from the sea, she leaned her head against the rock, and wept.
The curiosity, not to say the interest, of Captain Grey was excited; there was a strange similarity between this woman’s situation and his own. Like him, she came with her load of sorrow to seek comfort from the lonely shore, the restless waves; like him, she failed to find it. Could she indeed be, as he had imagined, the clergyman’s wife? In a tranquil home, in the midst of duties, surrounded by ties, in a position that seemed to him so happy because it contrasted so forcibly with his own — what secret grief could be eating to her heart’s core?
While he was thus pondering, the twilight was closing in, and silently the tide had risen around them. It was time to retreat. The stranger raised her head, and wiped away her tears; then rose, and after one more long gaze over the darkening sea, put on her bonnet, and retraced her steps over the rocks. The waves had by this time flowed completely round their base, forming a channel between them and the beach, which, I though by no means dangerous, might be difficult to cross. This Captain Grey observed; and, passing round the rock that she might not discover how near he had been to her, he approached from the opposite side, and bowing, offered his hand to help her. She seemed surprised, even startled; but she accepted his assistance, bowed her thanks in silence, and they passed on their several ways without having exchanged a word.
The next day the clergyman of the parish called upon Randolph Grey. Learning that a stranger had taken lodgings at the farm, he thought it right to ascertain whether he could be of any service to him. Captain Grey had no opportunity
of avoiding this well-meant visit, as he would