"What do you mean by escaped?" he demanded.
The hollow sunken eyes glared up at him.
"What did you think I meant?" he retorted. "You need not be frightened, she will come back," and he laughed bitterly.
Jasper glanced at him again, and after a moment of hesitation turned and went into the house.
Meanwhile Stella was climbing the steep ascent to the bit of table-land on the cliff. She felt suffocated and overwhelmed. "To-morrow! to-morrow!" seemed to ring in her ears. Was there no escape? As she looked down at the waves rolling in beneath her, and beating their crested heads against the rocks, she almost felt as if she could drop down to them and so find escape and rest. So strong was the feeling, the temptation, that she shrank back against the cliff, and sank down on dry and chalky turf, trembling and confused. Suddenly, as she thus sat, she heard a man's step coming up the cliff, and thinking it was Jasper, rose and pushed the hair from her face with an effort at self-command.
But it was not Jasper, it was a straighter, more stalwart figure, and in a moment, as he stood to look at the sea, she knew him. It was Leycester, and with a low, inarticulate cry, she shrank back against the cliff and watched him. He stood for a while motionless, leaning on his stick, his back turned from her, then he took up a pebble and dropped it down into the depths beneath, sighed, and to her intense relief, went down again.
But though he had not spoken, the sight of him, his dearly-loved presence so near her, shook her to her center. White and breathless she leaned against the hard rock, her eyes strained to catch the last glimpse of him; then she sank on to the ground and hiding her face in her hands burst into tears.
They were the first tears that she had shed since that awful day, and every drop seemed of molten fire that scorched her heart as it flowed from it.
If ever she had persuaded herself that the time might come when she would cease to love him, she knew, now that she had seen him again, that she could not so hope again. Never while life was left to her should she cease to love him. And to-morrow, to-morrow.
"Oh, my love, my love!" she murmured, stretching out her hands as she had done that night in the garden, "come back to me! I cannot let you go! I cannot do it! I cannot!"