The policeman departed on his melancholy errand and the procession moved swiftly across the sandy beach and up the stone-paved way by which boats were dragged down the cliff to the sea.  The village of Bryngelly lay to the right.  It had grown away from the church, which stood dangerously near the edge of the cliff.  On the further side of the church, and a little behind it, partly sheltered from the sea gales by a group of stunted firs, was the Vicarage, a low single-storied stone-roofed building, tenanted for twenty-five years past and more by Beatrice’s father, the Rev. Joseph Granger.  The best approach to it from the Bryngelly side was by the churchyard, through which the men with the stretchers were now winding, followed by the crowd of sightseers.

“Might as well leave them here at once,” said one of the bearers to the other in Welsh.  “I doubt they are both dead enough.”

The person addressed assented, and the thick-set man wrapped in a dark cloak, who was striding along by Beatrice’s stretcher, groaned again.  Clearly, he understood the Welsh tongue.  A few seconds more and they were passing through the stunted firs up to the Vicarage door.  In the doorway stood a group of people.  The light from a lamp in the hall struck upon them, throwing them into strong relief.  Foremost, holding a lantern in his hand, was a man of about sixty, with snow-white hair which fell in confusion over his rugged forehead.  He was of middle height and carried himself with something of a stoop.  The eyes were small and shifting, and the mouth hard.  He wore short whiskers which, together with the eyebrows, were still tinged with yellow.  The face was ruddy and healthy looking, indeed, had it not been for the dirty white tie and shabby black coat, one would have taken him to be what he was in heart, a farmer of the harder sort, somewhat weather-beaten and anxious about the times—­a man who would take advantage of every drop in the rate of wages.  In fact he was Beatrice’s father, and a clergyman.

By his side, and leaning over him, was Elizabeth, her elder sister.  There was five years between them.  She was a poor copy of Beatrice, or, to be more accurate, Beatrice was a grand development of Elizabeth.  They both had brown hair, but Elizabeth’s was straighter and faint-coloured, not rich and ruddying into gold.  Elizabeth’s eyes were also grey, but it was a cold washed-out grey like that of a February sky.  And so with feature after feature, and with the expression also.  Beatrice’s was noble and open, if at times defiant.  Looking at her you knew that she might be a mistaken woman, or a headstrong woman, or both, but she could never be a mean woman.  Whichever of the ten commandments she might choose to break, it would not be that which forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbour.  Anybody might read it in her eyes.  But in her sister’s, he might discern her father’s shifty hardness watered by woman’s weaker will