I had gone down to Brighton for my health, and I was staying at the most comfortable and luxurious of hotels, “The Norfolk.”  It was the end of September, and the only peculiarity of the month that I remember was this:  the nights grew dark very soon—­they were not cold; the darkness was rather that of soft thick gloom that spread over land and sea.  No one need ever feel dull in Brighton.  If I could have liked billiards, or cared for the theater, or enjoyed the brilliant shops on the crowded pier, with its fine music, I might have been happy enough; but I was miserable with this aching pain of regret and the chill desolation of a terrible loss.  I tried the Aquarium.  If fishes could soothe the heart of man, solace might be found there; but to my morbid fancy they looked at me with wide open eyes of wonder—­they knew the secrets of the sea—­the faint stir of life in the beautiful anemones had lost its interest.  I could not smile at the King Crabs; the reading tables and the music had no interest for me; outwardly I was walking through the magnificent halls of the Aquarium—­inwardly my heart was beating to the mournful rhythms of the sea.  The clock had not struck seven when I came out, and there lying before me was the Chain Pier.

I went there as naturally as the needle goes to the magnet.  The moon shone with a fitful light—­at times it was bright as day—­flooded the sea with silver and showed the chain and the arches of the pier as plainly as the sun could have done—­showed the running of the waves—­they were busy that evening and came in fast—­spreading out in great sheets of white foam, and when the moonlight did touch the foam it was beautiful to see.

But my lady moon was coquettish—­every now and then she hid her face behind a drifting cloud, then the soft, thick gloom fell again, and the pier lay like a huge shadow—­the very place, I thought, in which a tortured heart could grow calm; there was only the wind and the sea, nothing more.  I would go to the spot where we two should stand together never more.  I fancied, as I paid for admission at the gate, that the face of the person who received it expressed some surprise.  It must have seemed a strange taste; but—­ah, me!—­there had bloomed for me for one short hour the flowers of paradise.

The thick, soft gloom was deeper on the pier.  I remember that, as I walked down, I heard from the church clocks the hour of eight.  All along the coast there was a line of light; the town was brilliantly lighted, and when I looked across the waters the West Pier was in all its radiance; the sound of the music floated over the waves to me, the light of the colored lamps shone far and wide.  I could see the moving mass of people; here I was almost alone.  I saw a gentleman smoking a cigar, I saw the inevitable lovers, I saw an old man with an iron face, I saw two young men, almost boys—­what had brought them there I could not think.

I reached the pier-head, where the huge lamp had been lighted and shone like a great brilliant jewel.  I sat down; there was no greater pleasure for me than an evening spent there.  At first all was quite still; the gentleman smoking his cigar walked up and down; the two youths, who had evidently mistaken the nature of the pier, and considered themselves greatly injured by the absence of music and company, went away; the old man sat still for some time, then he left.