She crept to the edge of the rock which had formed her concealment and looked down upon the river. A canoe rowed by a single oarsman was making its way swiftly to the island. She could not distinguish the face of the occupant; but there was a band of red paint around the edge of the canoe, and she remembered that Edward Clark’s alone was so ornamented. It was the same that had brought her from the island. Did the signal come from him—from Edward Clark? What had he in common with the wild, strange girl who had broken upon her solitude? A thrill of pain, such as she had never dreamed of before, shot through her heart as she asked these questions. She would have watched the landing of the canoe, but all strength suddenly left her, and she sunk upon a fragment of stone, almost powerless and in extreme suffering.
In a little more than an hour she saw the same solitary rower crossing the river, but with more deliberate motion. She watched him while he moored the canoe in the little cove, and caught another glimpse of him as he turned a corner of her dwelling and mingled with the group of young persons who were drinking tea on the green sward in front.
It was a weary hour to the deformed girl before the party broke up and were transported to the opposite shore, where farm-wagons stood ready to convey them to Wilkesbarre. The sun was almost down, and the island quiet again when she saw two persons coming from the house to the cove. She arose, and folding her shawl about her prepared to descend to the shore.
Mary had walked half-way down the ledge when she stopped abruptly in the path; for sitting on the moss beneath one of these pines was the strange girl who had so excited her wonder. Mary’s slow step had not disturbed her, and unconscious of a witness she was unbraiding the string of berries from her hair and supplying their place with a rope of twisted coral. The strings of scarlet ribbon with which she knotted it on her temple were bright, and had evidently never been tied before.
Mary’s heart beat painfully and she hurried forward, as if some fierce animal had sprung up in her path. An uncontrollable repulsion to that wild and beautiful girl, which she neither understood nor tried to account for, seized her. When she reached the shore the canoe with Edward Clark and her sister seated in it was making leisurely towards the mouth of the ravine, and she sat down on the shadowy side of an oak, to await their coming. Their approach was so noiseless that she did not know they had reached the shore till the voice of Edward Clark apprised her of it. He was speaking earnestly to her sister, and there was both agitation and deep tenderness in his voice—a breaking forth of the heart’s best feelings, which she had never witnessed in him before.
“No, Jane,” he said, in a resolute voice, shaken with a sorrowful tremor; “you must now choose between that man and me; there can be nothing of rivalry between us; I heartily despise him! I am not jealous—I could not be a creature so unworthy; but it grieves me to feel that you can place him for a moment on a level with yourself. If you persist in this degrading coquetry you are unworthy of the love which I have given you. Forgive me, Jane, if I speak harshly; don’t cry—it grieves me to wound your feelings, but——”
He was interrupted by a sound as of some one falling heavily to the ground. He leaped from the canoe, and there, behind the great oak, lay Mary Derwent helpless and insensible.
“She has wandered too far, and exhausted herself,” said the agitated young man as he bore her to the canoe. “Sit down, Jane, and take her head in your lap—your grandmother will know what to do for her.”
Jane reached forth her arms and received the insensible head on her bosom. She turned her face petulantly away from that of her lover, and repulsed him with sullen discontent when, in his attempts to restore Mary, his hand happened to touch hers.
“Set her down,” she said, pushing him indignantly away. “Attend to your oars; we neither want your help or your ill-natured grumblings. I tell you, Ned Clark, you are just the Grossest creature I ever saw. Take that for your pains!”