The cliffs were completely desolate, except for some donkeys browsing here and there, their brown hair silvered by the frost.

There was a superstition in the town that the place was haunted on moonlight nights by the spirit of a woman who had perished in the wreck.

It had been a French vessel, wrecked five years before, and all on board were drowned--six men and one woman, the wife of the skipper.

They had all been buried in one grave in the little cemetery that was on the top of the headland; and it was easy to see how the superstition of the haunting came about, for as the curate watched the spray on the rock near the wreck rise up in the moonlight and fall back into the sea, he could almost make himself believe that he saw in it the supple form of a woman with uplifted hands, praying heaven for rescue.
The wind was pretty rough when he got to the head of land, and he walked up among the graves to find a place where he might be sheltered and yet have advantage of the view.

He knew that close by the edge of the cliff, over the grave of the shipwrecked people, stood a marble cross, large enough to shelter a man somewhat if he leaned against it.