Yes, Elizabeth would be all to Norman Lovel, or she would be nothing. She did not say these words, or think these thoughts; but the resolution rose and burned in her heart like a fire. Filled with the tumult of these sensations, she did not heed what her lover was saying. His voice seemed to come from afar off; and as for the meaning of his speech, her ears refused to drink it in.
Norman saw her distraction, and was amazed by it. Had he ridden fifteen miles through the woods, almost on an unbroken gallop, to be met with half looks, and greeted only by monosyllables? The young man took fire at once. He would give Elizabeth plenty of time to collect her thoughts. His kindest words should no longer be wasted on a sullen statue.
In this heat of temper, Norman took up his hat and went out. Elizabeth started, looked wildly over her shoulder, and tried to call him back; but her voice was husky, and refused utterance; she could neither speak nor move, till he had crossed the threshold, and was gone. For some moments she sat motionless. It seemed as if her limbs were girded to the chair. She thought with bitterness that the power of Barbara Stafford's evil will held her tight, when it was but the reaction of her own overwrought feelings. The fiend Jealousy was torturing her.
Elizabeth broke free from this painful thrall, started up, and went to the door, shading her eyes with one hand as she looked forth toward the ocean. It lay in the distance, blue and sparkling, like ridges and waves of sapphire, breaking through streams of diamond dust. The glory of the sunshine was nothing to her. She turned away, searching the shore; there she saw young Lovel walking rapidly in the path from which Barbara Stafford had just disappeared.
"He is going to her! he is going to her!" cried the young girl, pressing one hand upon her forehead, to still a thought that seemed gnawing at her brain like a viper. "She has charmed him away, she and the sweet-toned familiar, that whispers in her voice, and looks through those velvet eyes—"
"Elizabeth, child! Elizabeth!"
She did not hear the voice of Tituba, who stood in the entry, behind her, waiting to be noticed.
"Child!" she repeated, touching the uplifted arm with her finger, "child!"
Elizabeth dropped her hand, and shrunk away, looking at Tituba suspiciously, over her shoulder.
"You hurt me, old Tituba. Look—my arm is black and purple where the marks of your nails have been. She has taught you this, old woman. I have seen her in the kitchen, with fresh herbs, which you made into tea; and roots, which she dug up with a dagger from among drifts of sea-weed on the shore. Keep away from me, old woman; my flesh creeps as you come near."