She shivered violently now. A sharp pain ran through her chest, as if she, too, had been putting forth some great physical energy. Shadows from the disturbed cypress boughs were falling all about her, breaking and forming again in a thousand fantastic movements. But one shadow, dark, solid and still, fell across a gleam of moonlight at her feet, freezing her to the heart. She looked slowly up and saw her husband.
CHAPTER LXIII.
FACE TO FACE.
For several seconds the husband and wife remained looking at each other in utter silence; the moaning of the cypress boughs sounded louder and more weird; through the whirl of her senses Elizabeth heard it still.
"Come forward," she heard her husband's voice say at length, in the hard, icy tones of concentrated passion. "Come forward, woman, that I may see your face."
The words seemed to come from a great distance; looking over at him, it seemed as if that shallow trench between them was a bottomless abyss which no power could bridge over,—the gulf between them for ever and ever.
"Come forward, I say."
She staggered slowly into the moonlight; the warning was fulfilled; ruin, disgrace had come; yet there she stood speechless, motionless, unable even to give utterance to a moan.
The man who had been digging, flung down his spade with a smothered oath.