soon be sunset. For some time there had been 

 a quiet gurgling and lisping down in the grass, 

 but it had meant nothing, until, of a sudden, I 

 heard the rush of a wave along the beach : the 

 tide was coming in. And with it came a breeze, 

 a moving, briny, bay-cooled breeze that stirred 

 the grass with a whisper of night. 



Once more I had worked round to the road. 

 It ran on ahead of me, up a bushy dune, and 

 forked, one branch leading off to the lighthouse, 

 the other straight out to the beach, out against 

 the white of the breaking waves. 



The evening purple was deepening on the 

 bay when I mounted the dune. Bands of pink 

 and crimson clouded the west, a thin cold wash 

 of blue veiled the east ; and overhead, bayward, 

 landward, everywhere, the misting and the 

 shadowing of the twilight. 



Between me and the white wave-bars at the 

 end of the road gleamed a patch of silvery 

 water— the returning tide. As I watched, a sil- 

 very streamlet broke away and came running 

 down the wheel track. Another streamlet, lag- 

 ging a little, ran shining down the other track, 

 stopped, rose, and creeping slowly to the middle 

 [72] 



