"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. I don't think I could ever be
thoroughly happy away from here."
"Nor I too, indeed," said Valmai, "now that I know it."
"I hope you will never leave the place--you seem to belong to it
somehow; and I hope I may never leave it, at least--at all events--"
and he hesitated as he remembered his father's wishes--expressed many
times, though at long intervals--that he should go to Australia and
visit an uncle who had for many years lived there. The prospect of a
voyage to the Antipodes had never been very attractive to Cardo, and
latterly the idea had faded from his mind. In the glamour of that
golden afternoon in spring, in Valmai's sweet companionship, the
thought of parting and leaving his native country was doubly unpleasant
to him. She saw the sudden embarrassment, and the flush that spread
over his face.
"You are going away?" she said, looking up at him.
There was only inquiry in the tone. Cardo wondered if she would be
sorry, and was tempted to make the most of his possible departure.
"I may have to go away," he said, "though I should hate it. I never
liked the idea, but now I perfectly dread it. And you," he added,
"should you miss me? It is not very lively here, so perhaps even I
might be missed a little."
Valmai did not answer; she looked out to the horizon where the blue of
the sky joined the blue of the sea, and the white breakers glinted in
the sunshine.
"Yes," she said presently, "I will be sorry when you go, and where are
you going to? Far away? To England, perhaps?"
"To Australia," replied Cardo.
"Australia! Oh! then you will never come back to Traeth Berwen!"