To her intense relief, Margaret obeyed her guidance, the shore was left behind, they were passing on to their quiet home; but the relief was transient. Scarcely had they lost sight of the sea before Margaret stopped—the bewildered look returned to her face—there began that dark, dreary groping of the hands. "I have lost him," she cried in a voice pitiful as a child's wail, and turning once more she pressed forward to the sands with a swift-gliding step. What could the young girl do? In her powerlessness the tears rolled down her face.
Her arms were still round her friend, but she did not dare to constrain her. "Margaret," she whispered pleadingly, her lips close to her friend's ear.
Quietly Margaret turned her pale face, over which a strange, sweet smile was beaming. "Coming, my beloved," she answered softly.
They had left the grass and tangled weeds behind them; they were treading the soft yellow sands; behind them was the warm earth, touched by the light of a young crescent moon, set like a silver bow in the parting clouds; before them, dark and hungry, roaring evermore like a monster chained, lay the awful sea.
Adèle groaned. If indeed a conflict were before them, she wished it had taken place above, while those terrible waters were comparatively distant, and Margaret was now pressing forward as though they were her goal. "Margaret, my darling! for pity's sake awake!" she cried in her desperation.
But Margaret only answered the voice of her dream. Again came that strange, sweet smile—again her lips moved: "Coming, Maurice, coming." Then, as Adèle with all her force tried to drag her back to the path, "Patience, my beloved!" and as she spoke the young girl felt in her quiet resistance the strength of madness.
Lifting up her heart in a passionate prayer for help to the one Being who seems in these awful moments near and real to weak humanity, Adèle made another effort. "Margaret!" she cried, and the ring of her young voice sounded clear above the tumult of wind and waves—"Margaret, listen to me."
Had she been understood at last? Was the terrible moment over? Certainly her voice had pierced the films of sleep. Into the fixed eyes came a sudden meaning. Margaret shivered, and pausing in her mad flight looked before her wildly. But not yet was the danger over—rather it was prolonged and intensified. The quiet somnambulism had given place to the worst kind of delirium.
With a shriek Margaret threw her hands above her head and tore herself free from the detaining grasp. "Maurice!" she cried in the strange exaltation of this madness. "I saw him there—they shall keep me from him no longer. Beloved, wait for me; I am coming."
One despairing glance Adèle threw around her; no human being was in sight; she felt numb and powerless, while the frail being, the faint pulsations of whose ebbing life they had been watching through those anxious nights and days, seemed endowed suddenly with a giant's strength. Sobbing convulsively, Adèle threw herself upon Margaret, and seizing her by the waist dragged her backward with all her remaining strength. A moment of struggle; then she felt herself being borne along the sands, her arms still round Margaret, but all her weight as nothing in comparison with this fierce energy of disease. Cooler and damper blew the wind, nearer and nearer came the sound of beating waves; at last the light foam began to sprinkle their faces; yet the faithful girl would not loosen her grasp—rather she would die with her friend.