One of the newspapers, however, heard of it, and in a little paragraph told that Lord Arleigh of Beechgrove had gone to Tintagel for the summer.

That paragraph had one unexpected result.
It was the first of May.

The young nobleman was thinking of the May days when he was a boy--of how the common near his early home was yellow with gorse, and the hedges were white with hawthorn.

He strolled sadly along the sea-shore, thinking of the sunniest May he had known since then, the May before his marriage.

The sea was unusually calm, the sky above was blue, the air mild and balmy, the white sea-gulls circled in the air, the waves broke with gentle murmur on the yellow sand.
He sat down on the sloping beach.