She placed her hand in his with a whispered word of greeting, for it would not do to speak aloud in that quiet concourse of people.
"Where have you been ?" he asked, at last.
"At home," she whispered.

"Why ?" "Because I hoped you would be out--" Valmai shook her head as a farmer's wife looked round at her reprovingly.

Cardo attempted another remark, but she only smiled with her finger on her lips.
"This is unendurable," he thought; but he was obliged to be satisfied with the pleasure of sitting beside her until the long sermon was over, and the crowd rose _en masse_ with ejaculations of delight at the moving eloquence of the preacher.
"As good as ever he was!" "Splendid!" "Did you hear that remark about the wrong key ?" "Oh! telling!" And amongst the murmer of approval and enthusiasm Valmai and Cardo rose.

For a moment the former looked undecided, and he read her thoughts.
"No--not home with the crowd, but down over the beach;" and she fell in with the suggestion, turning her face to the sea breeze and taking the path to the shore.
Here the Berwen was running with its usual babbling and gurgling through the stones into the sea, the north-west wind was tossing the foam into the air, and the waves came bounding and racing up the yellow sand like children at play; the little sea-crows cawed noisily as they wheeled round the cliffs, and the sea-gulls called to their fellows as they floated over the waves or stood about the wet, shining sands.
"There's beautiful, it is," said Valmai, pushing back her hat and taking long breaths of the sea wind; "only six weeks I have been here and yet I seem to have known it for ever--I suppose because from a baby I used to hear my father talking of this place.

It was his old home, and he was always longing to come back." "Yes," said Cardo, "I can imagine that.