Anything
sinking in those waters would be carried far away, and never come back
to the shore of Wales.
She turned her head and looked at Bryngelly, and the long familiar
stretch of cliff. How fair it seemed, bathed in the quiet lights of
summer afternoon. Oh! was there any afternoon where the child had gone,
and where she was following fast?--or was it all night, black, eternal
night, unbroken by the dram of dear remembered things?
There were the Dog Rocks, where she had stood on that misty autumn
day, and seen the vision of her coffined mother's face. Surely it was a
presage of her fate. There beyond was the Bell Rock, where in that same
hour Geoffrey and she had met, and behind it was the Amphitheatre, where
they had told their love. Hark! what was that sound pealing faintly at
intervals across the deep? It was the great ship's bell that, stirred
from time to time by the wash of the high tide, solemnly tolled her
passing soul.
She paddled on; the sound of that death-knell shook her nerves, and made
her feel faint and weak. Oh, it would have been easier had she been as
she was a year ago, before she learned to love, and hand in hand had
seen faith and hope re-arise from the depths of her stirred soul.
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