Very dull was poor Charlotte Guise all that Sunday evening. She would not meet the little one on coming out of church, but mixed with the people to avoid it. Her heart yearned to give a fond word, a tender kiss; but so anxiously bent was she upon entering Greylands' Rest, that she shrank from anything that might impede it, or imperil the child's stay at the Nunnery. After taking tea in her parlour, she sat awhile in her own room above stairs indulging her sadness. It was sometimes worse than she knew how to bear. She might not give way to grief, distress, anguish in the presence of the world; that might have betrayed her to suspicion; but there were moments, when alone, that she yielded to it in all its bitterness. The fathomless sea, calm to-night, was spread out before her, grey and dull, for the rays of the setting sun had left it: did that sea cover the body of him whom she had loved more than life? To her left rose the Friar's Keep--she could almost catch a glimpse of its dark walls if she stretched her head well out at the casement; at any rate, she could see this end of the Grey Nunnery, and that was something. Did that Friar's Keep, with its dark tales, its superstitions stories--did that Keep contain the mystery? She fully believed it did. From the very first, the description of the building had seized on her mind, and left its dread there. It was there she must look for the traces of her husband's fate; perhaps even for himself. Yes, she believed that the grim walls covered him, not the heaving sea.
"Oh Anthony! my ill-fated, wronged husband!" she cried, raising her clasped hands upwards in her distress and speaking through her blinding tears, "may the good God help me to bring your fate to light!"
The shades of twilight were deepening. Fishermen, with their wives and children, were wending their way homewards after the Sunday evening's walk--the one walk taken together of the seven days. Two of the Grey Ladies came down from the cliff and went towards the Nunnery: Madame Guise, who by this time had made acquaintance with some of the inhabitants, wondered whether anybody was ill in the cottages there. A good many dwellings were scattered on this side of the cliff: some of them pretty, commodious homes, others mere huts.