Sophie was not the most delightful companion in the world for such a place.  London was her sphere, as she herself had understood when declaiming against those husbands who keep their wives in the country.  And she had no love for the sea specially, regarding all winds as nuisances excepting such as had been raised by her own efforts, and thinking that salt from a saltcellar was more convenient than that brought to her on the breezes.  It was now near the end of May, but she had not been half an hour at the inn before she was loud in demanding a fire—­and when the fire came she was unwilling to leave it.  Her gesture was magnificent when Lady Ongar proposed to her that she should bathe.  What—­put her own dear little dry body, by her own will, into the cold sea!  She shrugged herself, and shook herself, and without speaking a word declined with so much eloquence that it was impossible not to admire her.  Nor would she walk.  On the first day, during the warmest part of the day, she allowed herself to be taken out in a carriage belonging to the inn; but after her drive she clung to the fire, and consumed her time with a French novel.

Nor was Lady Ongar much more comfortable in the Isle of Wight than she had been in London.  The old poet told us how Black Care sits behind the horseman, and some modern poet will some day describe to us that terrible goddess as she takes her place with the stoker close to the fire of the locomotive engine.  Sitting with Sophie opposite to her, Lady Ongar was not happy, even though her eye rested on the lines of that magnificent coast.  Once indeed, on the evening of their first day, Sophie left her, and she was alone for nearly an hour.  Ah, how happy could she have been if Harry Clavering might have been there with her.  Perhaps a day might come in which Harry might bring her there.  In such a case Atra Cura would be left behind, and then she might be altogether happy.  She sat dreaming of this for above an hour, and Sophie was still away.  When Sophie returned, which she did all too soon, she explained that she had been in her bedroom.  She had been very busy, and now had come down to make herself comfortable.

On the next evening Lady Ongar declared her intention of going up on the downs by herself.  They had dined at five, so that she might have a long evening, and soon after six she started.  “If I do not break down I will get as far as the Needles,” she said.  Sophie, who had heard that the distance was three miles, lifted up her hands in despair.  “If you are not back before nine I shall send the people after you.”  Consenting to this with a laugh, Lady Ongar made her way up to the downs, and walked steadily on toward the extreme point of the island.  To the Needles themselves she did not make her way.  These rocks are now approached, as all the stay-at-home travellers know, through a fort, and down to the fort she did not go.  But turning a little from the highest point of the hill toward the cliffs on her left hand, she descended till