Then his brain cleared; he began to upbraid himself for his violence. "Fool, fool!" he muttered, hoarsely, as he climbed the path, scarcely heeding where he went. "I have lost her love forever! Why did I not bear with her a few hours longer? I have borne with her so long that I should have borne with her to the end! It was that cry of hers that maddened me! Heaven! to think that she should love him so; that she should have clung to him so persistently, him whom she had not seen for months, and keep her heart steeled against me who have hung about her like a slave! But I will be her slave no longer, to-morrow makes me her master."
As he muttered this sinister threat, he found that he had reached the end of the cutting that had been made in the cliff, and turned mechanically. The wind was blowing from the sea, and the sound of the waves rose from the depths beneath, crying hoarsely and complainingly as if in harmony with his mood. He paused a moment and looked down abstractedly.
"I would rather have her lying dead there," he muttered, "than that there should be a chance of her going back to him. No! he shall never have her. To-morrow shall set that fear at rest forever. To-morrow!" With a long breath he turned from the edge of the cliff, to descend, but as he did so he felt a hand on his arm, and looking up he saw the thin, frail figure of the boy standing in the path.
He was so wrapt in his own thoughts that he was startled, and made a movement to throw the hand off roughly, but it stuck fast, and with an effort to command himself, he said:
"Well, what are you doing up here?"
As he put the question, he saw by the fading light that the boy's face was deathly white—that for once the beautiful, fatal flush of red was absent.
"You are not fit to be out at this time of night," he said, harshly. "What are you doing up here?"
The boy looked at him, still retaining his hold, and standing in his path.
"I have come to speak to you, Jasper," he said, and his thin voice was strangely set and earnest.
Jasper looked down at him impatiently.