woe.  But there is no sense of shame when deep cries are wrenched from the throat under the free sky, with only the sea to answer.  One can let the body take half the burden of pain, and writhe on the breast of the earth without reproach.  I took this relief that nature meant for such as I, wearing myself into the indifference of exhaustion, to which must sooner or later ensue the indifference brought by time.  Sometimes a flock of small brown sandbirds watched me curiously from a sodden bank of sea-weed, but that was all.

This story is not of myself, however, or of the pain which I cured in this natural way, and which is but a memory now.

One gray morning a white mist settled heavily, and I could see but a short distance on the dark waters for the fog.  A fresh access of the suffering which I was fighting, the wildness of my grief and struggles, wore me out, so that I fell asleep there on the rough sand, my mouth laid against the salty pebbles, and my hands grasping the sharp, yielding grains, crushed as if some giant foot had trodden me into the earth.

I was awakened by a soft speculative voice.  “Another, perhaps,” I thought it said.  Starting up, I saw standing beside me a thin, shrinking figure, drenched like myself by the salt mist.  From under a coarse, dark straw hat, a small, delicate face regarded me shyly, yet calmly.  It was very pale, a little sunken, and surrounded by a cloud of light, curling hair, blown loose by the wind; the wide sensitive lips were almost colorless, and the peculiar eyes, greenish and great-pupiled, were surrounded by stained, discolored rings that might have been the result of weary vigils, or of ill-health.  The woman, who was possibly thirty, must once have been possessed of a fragile type of beauty, but it was irretrievably lost now in the premature age that had evidently settled upon her.

Struggling to a sitting posture, I saw that the thick white fog had closed densely, and that the woodland back of us was barely distinguishable.  We too seemed shut in, as in a room.  “You live at Mrs. Libby’s,” said the young woman, after a moment’s hesitation.  “I am Agnes Rayne.  I hope I did not frighten you.”

“No,” I replied, brushing the sand from my damp clothing as I rose.  “I am afraid if you had not come by fortunately, I should have had a thorough wetting.  Can we get home before the storm begins?”

“You would not have taken cold down here on the beach,” she remarked, turning and looking out to sea.  It seemed strangely to me as if those odd eyes of hers could pierce the blinding mist.  “I will not go back with you.  I have just come.”

Whatever she did or said that might have seemed rude or brusque in another, was sweet and courteous from her manner.  “Very well,” I said.  Then I paused,—­my desire to meet her again was absurdly keen.  Stepping closer to her side, I extended my hand.  “Will you come to see me, Miss Rayne?  I am very lonely, and I should be so—­grateful.”