It doesn't
matter--it's over now."
Her hand mechanically swung something to and fro as she answered him.
It was the little white silk bag which she had always kept hidden in
her bosom up to this time. One of the relics which it held--one of the
relics which she had not had the heart to part with before--was gone
from its keeping forever. Alone, on a strange shore, she had torn from
her the fondest of her virgin memories, the dearest of her virgin hopes.
Alone, on a strange shore, she had taken the lock of Frank's hair from
its once-treasured place, and had cast it away from her to the sea and
the night.
CHAPTER II.
THE tall man who had passed Captain Wragge in the dark proceeded rapidly
along the public walk, struck off across a little waste patch of ground,
and entered the open door of the Aldborough Hotel. The light in the
passage, falling full on his face as he passed it, proved the truth of
Captain Wragge's surmise, and showed the stranger to be Mr. Kirke, of
the merchant service.
Meeting the landlord in the passage, Mr. Kirke nodded to him with the
familiarity of an old customer. "Have you got the paper?" he asked; "I
want to look at the visitors' list.
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