An hour’s ride brought them to Old Field Cottage.  The sun had not yet set, but the sky was dark with clouds that threatened rain or snow; and therefore Jacquelina only took time to jump out and speak to Edith, shake hands with old Jenny, kiss Miriam, and bid adieu to Marian; and then, saying that she believed she would hurry back on her aunty’s account, and that she was afraid she would not get to Luckenough before ten o’clock, anyhow, she jumped into the carriage and drove off.

And Marian, guarding her happy secret, entered the cottage to make preparations for keeping her appointment with Thurston.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, at Luckenough, Dr. Grimshaw kept his room until late in the afternoon.  Then, descending the stairs, and meeting the maid Maria, who almost shrieked aloud at the ghastly face that confronted her, he asked: 

“Where is Mrs. Grimshaw?”

“Lord, sir!” cried the girl, half paralyzed by the sound of his sepulchral voice, “she’s done gone home ‘long o’ Miss Marian.”

“When will she be back, do you know?”

“Lord, sir!” cried Maria, shuddering, “I heerd her tell old Mis’, how she didn’t think she’d be back to-night.”

“Ah!” said the unhappy man, in a hollow tone, that seemed to come from a tomb, as he passed down.

And Maria, glad to escape him, fled up-stairs, and never paused until she had found refuge in Mrs. L’Oiseau’s room.

One hour after that, Professor Grimshaw, closely enveloped in an ample cloak, left Luckenough, and took the road to the beach.

CHAPTER XXIV.

NIGHT AND STORM.

The heavens were growing very dark; the wind was rising and driving black clouds athwart the sky; the atmosphere was becoming piercingly cold; the snow, that during the middle of the day had thawed, was freezing hard.  Yet Marian hurried fearlessly and gayly on over the rugged and slippery stubble fields that lay between the cottage and the beach.  A rapid walk of fifteen minutes brought her down to the water’s edge.  But it was now quite dark.  Nothing could be more deserted, lonely and desolate than the aspect of this place.  From her feet the black waters spread outward, till their utmost boundaries were lost among the blacker vapors of the distant horizon.  Afar off a sail, dimly seen or guessed at, glided ghost-like through the shadows.  Landward, the boundaries of field and forest, hill and vale, were all blended, fused, in murky obscurity.  Heavenward, the lowering sky was darkened by wild, scudding, black clouds, driven by the wind, through which the young moon seemed plunging and hiding as in terror.  The tide was coming in, and the waves surged heavily with a deep moan upon the beach.  Not a sound was heard except the dull, monotonous moan of the sea, and the fitful, hollow wail of the wind.  The character of the scene was in the last degree wild, dreary, gloomy