Out of her sphere - University Library

88 OUT OF ITER SPHERE.
He had walked past the town, past the
Rectory of St. Hilda, and was looking up
to the house—which to-day, with its few
creepers nipped by the east wind, and its
stunted trees already leafless and shivering,
like sentient things, in the bleak gale,
looked colder, blacker, more unhomelike,
than ever—and thinking of its absent
mistress, with perhaps as much anger as
pity, for " why on earth had she bolted and
got him into this mess ?" when two voices
struck on his ear—Beatey Layton's and
Miily Lisdale's. They had been to the
Rectory to inquire after Mr. Thornton, and
were leaving it by the side path, which
brought them down to the beach, preferring,
bleak as the day was, to go that way home
to walking through the narrow streets and
lanes of that end of the town into which
the front entrance would have brought them.
He saw them before they perceived him.
Milly's sensible, shrewd little face was look-