[CHAPTER X]
Early the next morning, Emmeline arose; and looking towards the sea, saw a still encreasing tempest gathering visibly over it. She wandered over the house; which tho' not large was chearful and elegant, and she fancied every thing in it bore testimony to the taste and temper of its master. The garden charmed her still more; surrounded by copse-wood and ever-greens, and which seemed equally adapted to use and pleasure. The country behind it, tho' divested of its foliage and verdure, appeared more beautiful than any she had seen since she left Wales; and with uncommon avidity she enjoyed, even amid the heavy gloom of an impending storm, the great and magnificent spectacle afforded by the sea. By reminding her of her early pleasures at Mowbray Castle, it brought back a thousand half-obliterated and agreeable, tho' melancholy images to her mind; while its grandeur gratified her taste for the sublime.
As she was indulging these contemplations, the wind suddenly blew with astonishing violence; and before Mrs. Stafford arose, the sea was become so tempestuous and impracticable, that eagerly as she wished to return to her children she could not think of braving it.
Godolphin had seen Emmeline wandering along the cliff, and had resolutely denied himself the pleasure of joining her; for from what had passed the evening before, he began to doubt his own power to forbear speaking to her of the subject that filled his heart.
They now met at breakfast; and Emmeline was charmed with her walk, tho' she had been driven from it by the turbulence of the weather, which by this time had arisen to an hurricane. When their breakfast ended, Mrs. Stafford followed Lady Adelina, who wanted to consult her on something that related to the little boy; Godolphin went out to give some orders; and Emmeline retired to a bow window which looked towards the sea.
Could she have divested her mind of its apprehensions that what formed for her a magnificent and sublime scene brought shipwreck and destruction to many others, she would have been highly pleased with a sight of the ocean in its present tremendous state. Lost in contemplating the awful spectacle, she did not see or hear Godolphin; who imagining she had left the room with his sister, had returned, and with his arms crossed, and his eyes fixed on her face, stood on the other side of the window like a statue.
The gust grew more vehement, and deafened her with it's fury; while the mountainous waves it had raised, burst thundering against the rocks and seemed to shake their very foundation. Emmeline, at the picture her imagination drew of their united powers of desolation, shuddered involuntarily and sighed.
'What disturbs Miss Mowbray?' said Godolphin.