? ? ? ? 'She is dead, perhaps,' said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she could have spurned the body of the ruined girl.
? ? ? ? 'She may have drowned herself, miss,' returned Mr. Littimer, catching at an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. 'It's very possible. Or, she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen's wives and children. Being given to low company, she was very much in the habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle, and sitting by their boats. I have known her do it, when Mr. James has been away, whole days. Mr. James was far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the children she was a boatman's daughter, and that in her own country, long ago, she had roamed about the beach, like them.'
? ? ? ? Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her sitting on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was innocent, listening to little voices such as might have called her Mother had she been a poor man's wife; and to the great voice of the sea, with its eternal 'Never more!'
? ? ? ? 'When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle -'
? ? ? ? 'Did I tell you not to speak to me?' she said, with stern contempt.
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