How preposterous it had seemed when Harry had first written her that he loved her! She hadn’t regarded him in the aspect of a lover—didn’t want to. It had seemed almost treachery to Peter. But now——. Now it didn’t seem at all preposterous—only wonderful, and true, and puzzling.
How long ago was it? Eight months since he had told her. She had been a child then—seventeen, with cornflower eyes and blowy daffodil hair. The knowledge that she was loved had startled her into womanhood.
She ought to be getting back. But Peter, Peter from whom she had no secrets, didn’t know. She dared not tell him—and Harry was there. Peter had given her so much—this year of romance; and yet, with all his giving——.
He might give her his whole life; he couldn’t give her this different thing that Harry offered.
She rose to go. Her attention was arrested. It couldn’t be! Gazing sheer down, she leant out across the broken parapet. In the racing tide, through its treacherous whirlpools, a man was swimming. She could see his reddish hair and beard shine as they caught the sunset. As he lunged forward, they sank beneath the surface. She held her breath.
He was keeping near in to the rocks—so near that, had she dropped a stone, it would have struck him. With all his fighting, he was making little progress. It was too far to the town to run for help—moreover, none of the fishing-boats ever ventured there. She wanted to cry out encouragement; she feared to distract him from his effort. Now, in rounding a bend, he was lost to sight. Ah! There he was again. She saw where he was going—to the weather-beaten steps which wound down the precipice. He stretched out his hand and pulled himself up, dragging his body across the rocks like a fly which had been all but drowned. He stood up, white and magnificent, squeezing the water from his beard and hair. As he commenced to climb the stair in the cliff-front, he vanished.
She couldn’t go now. Her curiosity was roused. What kind of a man could be so foolhardy as to do a thing like that? Drawing back into the shadow of the tower, she waited.
Whistling—faint at first! It was a gay little Neapolitan air. Singing for a stave or two! It broke off—the whistling took up the air. Gulls flew up, circling and screaming. Above the moldering ramparts, red and gold against the red and gold of the sunset, came the valiant head of a man who might have been the last of the pirates. His eyes shone like blue fire. The wind was in his beard and hair. When he had lifted himself on to the wall, he stood there, on the very edge, looking back perilously. He was of extraordinary height and strength. The teeth, through which he whistled, were strong and white—everything about him was powerful, his hands, his shoulders, his courageous face. He seemed a survival of ancient deity—a sea-god who, thinking himself unobserved, had landed at the spot where, centuries ago, Venus had been worshiped by a forgotten world. He looked solitary and irresponsible—a law to himself. Because of his size and the remoteness of the place, Kay was filled with lonely terror.
He walked slowly over to the easel in the broken archway. He was bare-armed and bare-footed; his shirt was collarless and turned back at the neck. Still whistling, he picked up the palette, pushed his thumb through it, glanced across his shoulder seaward and commenced touching in streaks of color. He worked carelessly, yet with rapid intensity. Sometimes he left ofif whistling, stepped back from the canvas, his head on one side, and surveyed his handiwork. The light was failings Kay prayed that he had finished—but no. Driven to desperation, she thought she could creep by him. Harry and Peter would be getting nervous.
She had drawn level with him. A stone turned beneath her foot. His head twisted sharply. She commenced to run. Glancing back, she saw his eyes following—he was laying down his brushes and palette. In her panic, she had chosen the wrong direction; a wall rose in front, blocking her exit. He was coming—she could hear his bare feet overtaking her. She climbed the wall; below lay the sea, now orange, now sullen in patches. There was no way of escape; she looked down. The space made her dizzy; she groped with her hands as if to push back the distance. She felt like a bird with its wings folded, falling, falling. Everything had gone black.