My heart too--what was
amiss with that? And why did the muscles of my body seem to melt like
wax?' The lonely wanderer by the sea could be none other than
Winifred.
'It is she!' I said. 'There is no beach-woman or shore-prowling girl
who, without raising an arm to balance her body, without a totter or
a slip, could step in that way upon stones some of which are as
slippery as ice with gelatinous weed and slime, while others are as
sharp as razors. To walk like that the eye must be my darling's, that
is to say, an eye as sure as a bird's the ball of the foot must be
the ball of a certain little foot I have often had in my hand wet
with sea-water and gritty with sand. For such work a mountaineer or a
cragsman, or Winifred, is needed.' Then I recalled her love of marine
creatures, her delight in seaweed, of which she would weave the most
astonishing chaplets and necklaces coloured like the rainbow.
'seawood boas' and seaweed turbans, calling herself the princess of
the sea (as indeed she was), and calling me her prince. 'Yes,' said
I, 'it is certainly she'; and when at last I espied a little dog by
her side, Tom Wynne's little dog Snap (a descendant of the original
Snap of our never-to-be-forgotten seaside adventures)--when I espied
all these things I said, 'Then the hour is come.
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