He had ridden four miles without noticing where he was going.

The coast became flat and sandy, the patches of cultivation ceased, and the open sea lay before him.

The sun shone on the blue expanse, while far out lay the mist like a wall, as if ready to return again at night.
Delphin put his horse up at a farmhouse, and went on foot over the sand.
The vast and peaceful ocean seemed to attract him.

He felt a longing to be alone with his thoughts, longer, indeed, than was his usual custom.
George Delphin was not often given to serious thought--his nature was too frivolous and unstable; but to-day he felt that there must be a reckoning, and on the very verge of the sea he threw himself on the sand, which was now warmed by the afternoon sun.

At first his thoughts surged like the billows over which he gazed.