Joan Haste | Page 9

It was at this juncture that Captain Henry Archibald Graves, R.N.,
pursuing his way by the little-frequented sea road that runs along the
top of the cliff past the Ramborough ruins to Bradmouth, halted the cob
on which he was riding in order that he might admire the scene at
leisure. Presently his eyes, following the line of the ruined tower, lit
upon the figure of a girl standing twenty feet from the ground in a gap
of the broken wall. He was sixty yards away or more, but there was
something so striking and graceful about this figure, poised on high and
outlined against the glow of the westering sun, that his curiosity
became excited to know whose it was and what the girl might be doing.
So strongly was it excited, indeed, that, after a fateful moment of

hesitation, Captain Graves, reflecting that he had never examined
Ramborough Abbey since he was a boy, turned his horse and rode up
the slope of broken ground that intervened between him and the
churchyard, where he dismounted and made the bridle fast to a stunted
thorn. Possibly the lady might be in difficulty or danger, he explained
to himself.
When he had tied up the cob to his satisfaction, he climbed the bank
whereon the thorn grew, and reached the dilapidated wall of the
churchyard, whence he could again see the lower parts of the tower
which had been hidden from his view for a while by the nature of the
ground. Now the figure of the woman that had stood there was gone,
and a genuine fear seized him lest she should have fallen. With some
haste he walked to the foot of the tower, to halt suddenly within five
paces of it, for before him stood the object of his search. She had
emerged from behind a thicket of briars that grew among the fallen
masonry; and, holding her straw hat in her hand, was standing with her
back towards him, gazing upwards at the unattainable nest.
"She is safe enough, and I had better move on," thought Captain
Graves.
At that moment Joan seemed to become aware of his presence; at any
rate, she wheeled round quickly, and they were face to face.
She started and blushed--perhaps more violently than the occasion
warranted, for Joan was not accustomed to meet strange men of his
class thus unexpectedly. Captain Graves scarcely noticed either the
start or the blush, for, to tell the truth, he was employed in studying the
appearance of the loveliest woman that he had ever beheld. Perhaps it
was only to him that she seemed lovely, and others might not have
rated her so highly; perhaps his senses deceived him, and Joan was not
truly beautiful; but, in his judgment, neither before nor after did he see
her equal, and he had looked on many women in different quarters of
the world.
She was tall, and her figure was rounded without being coarse, or even
giving promise of coarseness. Her arms were somewhat long for her

height, and set on to the shoulders with a peculiar grace, her hands were
rather thin, and delicately shaped, and her appearance conveyed an
impression of vigour and perfect health. These gifts, however, are not
uncommon among English girls. What, to his mind, seemed uncommon
was Joan's face as it appeared then, in the beginning of her
two-and-twentieth year, with its curved lips, its dimpled yet resolute
chin, its flawless oval, its arched brows, and the steady, tender eyes of
deepest brown that shone beneath them. For the rest, her head was
small and covered with ripping chestnut hair gathered into a knot at the
back, her loose-bodied white dress, secured about the waist with a
leather girdle, was clean and simple, and her bearing had a grace and
dignity that Nature alone can give. Lastly, though from various
indications he judged that she did not belong to his own station in life,
she looked like a person of some refinement.
Such was Joan's outward appearance. It was attractive enough, and yet
it was not her beauty only that fascinated Henry Graves. There was
something about this girl which was new to him; a mystery more
beautiful than beauty shone upon her sweet face--such a mystery as he
had noted once or twice in the masterpieces of ancient art, but never till
that hour on human lips or eyes. In those days Joan might have posed
as a model of Psyche before Cupid kissed her.
Now let us turn for a moment to Henry Archibald Graves, the man
destined to be the hero of her life's romance.
Like so many sailors, he was short, scarcely taller than Joan herself
indeed, and stout in build. In complexion he was fair, though much