For she was close upon the tract of sand-hills--a picture of desolation in the sullen murk, the winding hollows between their pale formless elevations bearing a harsh growth of neutral tinted sword-like grasses.
She had come too far by a quarter of a mile at least, so she judged, and must turn her face eastward again and laboriously plough her way back.
But the return journey was crowned with no better success than the outward one.

Carefully, methodically she quartered the beach; but simply her things weren't there, had vanished, leaving neither token or trace.
She was confronted moreover by the unpleasant fact that it grew late.
Soon the dusk would fall, its coming hastened by the mist, now settling into a steady drizzle of rain precursor of a dark and early night.

To hunt any longer would be useless.

She must give it up.

Yet her maidenly pride, her sense of what is seemly and becoming, revolted from exposing herself to Timothy Proud's coarse leering glances or even--should he by luck be her waterman--to Jennifer's more respectful curiosity, dishevelled and but half-dressed as she was.