My life
hangs heavy on my hands--how will it end?"
So in sheer weariness and desperation he went to Tintagel, having, as he
thought, kept his determination to himself, as he wished no one to know
whither he had retreated. One of the newspapers, however, heard of it,
and in a little paragraph told that Lord Arleigh of Beechgrove had gone
to Tintagel for the summer. That paragraph had one unexpected result.
It was the first of May. The young nobleman was thinking of the May days
when he was a boy--of how the common near his early home was yellow with
gorse, and the hedges were white with hawthorn. He strolled sadly along
the sea-shore, thinking of the sunniest May he had known since then, the
May before his marriage. The sea was unusually calm, the sky above was
blue, the air mild and balmy, the white sea-gulls circled in the air,
the waves broke with gentle murmur on the yellow sand.
He sat down on the sloping beach. They had nothing to tell him, those
rolling, restless waves--no sweet story of hope or of love, no vague
pleasant harmony. With a deep moan he bent his head as he thought of the
fair young wife from whom he had parted for evermore, the beautiful
loving girl who had clung to him so earnestly.
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