Then I am going to cross the Rock Bridge." She did not tell Nance that her chief object was to pay a last visit to her old haunts by the Berwen.

After making all arrangements with Peggi Bullet and Shon, she took her way across the bridge.

The year that had passed since Cardo had left her, with its varied experiences and trials, the bitter sense of loneliness and desertion, the pains and the delights of motherhood, the desolation and sorrow of bereavement, all had worked a change in the simple girl's character, that now surprised even herself, and she thankfully realised that her troubles had at all events generated a strength which enabled her to act for herself and attend to matters of business which had before been unapproachable mysteries to her.

She shrank a little as she met the bold, admiring gaze of a knot of sailors, who stood at the door of the Ship Inn, where she explained to the buxom landlady that she wanted the car to meet her at the Rock Bridge on the following morning at ten.
"Yes, miss fach, and Jackie will drive you safe; but, indeed, there's long time since we saw you! You never come to see us now, and there's many warm hearts on this side the Rock Bridge as on the island, I can tell you." "Yes, indeed, I know, and I thank you all," said Valmai, as she went out again into the sunshine.
The sailors were gone now, and she was free to make her way over the golden sands so often trodden by her and Cardo.
Every boulder, every sandy nook, every wave that broke, brought its own sad memories.
She turned up the path by the Berwen, which led to the old church, carefully avoiding even a glance at the tangled path on the other side of the river, which she and Cardo had made their own.
Pale and dry-eyed, she pressed her hands on her bosom as if to still the aching throbbing within.

Every step that brought her nearer to the old church increased the dull aching that weighed her down; but still she pressed on, longing, yet dreading, to see the spot on which she and Cardo had made their vows together on that sunny morning which seemed so long ago.
As she entered the porch, she disturbed the white owl, who emerged from the ivy with a flap of her great wings, and sailed across the Berwen.
The worm-eaten door of the church stood wide open.