There was a walk along the sea-wall a few feet wide, where the wind blew strongly laden with the Channel breezes, and on the other side was a waste of sand and stone.

In some places water was on both sides of the wall, and here one could feel more alone than anywhere else in the town.
Peter set off, his head in a mad whirl.

He had felt that such a letter would come for weeks, but that did not, in a way, lessen the blow when it came.

He had known, too, that Hilda was not to him what she had been, but he had not altogether felt that she never could be so again.

Now he knew that he had gone too far to turn back.