Ellena made no reply; she remained with her eyes fixed in amazement upon his face. There was something in his manner of pronouncing this, yet more extraordinary than in the words themselves. Alarmed by his manner, and awed by the encreasing gloom, and swelling surge, that broke in thunder on the beach, she at length turned away, and again walked towards the hamlet which was yet very remote.
He soon overtook her; when rudely seizing her arm, and gazing earnestly on her face, "Who is it, that you fear?" said he, "say who!"
"That is more than I dare say," replied Ellena, scarcely able to sustain herself.
"Hah! is it even so!" said the Monk, with encreasing emotion. His visage now became so terrible, that Ellena struggled to liberate her arm, and supplicated that he would not detain her. He was silent, and still gazed upon her, but his eyes, when she had ceased to struggle, assumed the fixt and vacant glare of a man, whose thoughts have retired within themselves, and who is no longer conscious to surrounding objects.
"I beseech you to release me!" repeated Ellena, "it is late, and I am far from home."
"That is true," muttered Schedoni, still grasping her arm, and seeming to reply to his own thoughts rather than to her words,—"that is very true."
"The evening is closing fast," continued Ellena, "and I shall be overtaken by the storm."
Schedoni still mused, and then muttered—"The storm, say you? Why ay, let it come."
As he spake, he suffered her arm to drop, but still held it, and walked slowly towards the house. Ellena, thus compelled to accompany him, and yet more alarmed both by his looks, his incoherent answers, and his approach to her prison, renewed her supplications and her efforts for liberty, in a voice of piercing distress, adding, "I am far from home, father; night is coming on. See how the rocks darken! I am far from home, and shall be waited for."
"That is false!" said Schedoni, with emphasis; "and you know it to be so."