It is Portia. Her face is very white, her lips are trembling, but her eyes are full of a strange, feverish fire.
"May I go, too? Do not prevent me," she says, in an agitated tone, laying her hand upon his arm. "I must go, I cannot stay here alone; thinking, thinking."
"You!" interrupts he; "and on such a night as this! Certainly not. Go back to the drawing-room at once." Involuntarily he puts out his hand across the doorway, as though to bar her egress. Then suddenly recollection forces itself upon him, he drops his extended arm, and coldly averts his eyes from hers.
"I beg your pardon," he says; "Why should I dictate to you? You will do as you please, of course; by what right do I advise or forbid you?"
Oppressed by the harshness of his manner and his determined coldness, that amounts almost to dislike, Portia makes no reply. When first he spoke, his words, though unloving, had still been full of a rough regard for her well-being, but his sudden change to the indifferent tone of an utter stranger had struck cold upon her heart. Cast down and disheartened, she now shrinks a little to one side, and by a faint gesture of the hand motions him to the open door.
As though unconscious, or cruelly careless of the wound he has inflicted, Fabian turns away from her and goes out into the sullen, stormy night, and, reaching the side-path that leads direct through the wood to the shore, is soon lost to sight.
Upon the beach dark forms are hurrying to and fro. Now and then can be heard the sound of a distant signal-gun; small knots of fishermen are congregated together, and can be seen talking anxiously when the lurid lightning, flashing overhead, breaks in upon the darkness.
There is terrible confusion everywhere. Hurried exclamations and shrill cries of fear and pity rise above the angry moaning of the wind, as now and then a faint lull comes in the storm; then, too, can be heard the bitter sobs and lamentations of two women, who are clinging to their men, as though by their weak arms they would hold them from battling with the waves to-night.
The sea is dashing itself in wildest fury against rock and boulder, and rushing in headlong up from the sands only to recede again in haste, as though in a hurry to fly back again to swell the power of the cruel waves that would willingly deal out death with every stroke.
The clouds, having changed from black to murky yellow, are hanging heavily in mid-air, as though undecided as to whether they will not fall in a body and so overwhelm the trembling earth. The spray, dashed inland by the terrific force of the wind, lighting on the lips of those who stand with straining eyes looking seaward, fills their mouths with its saltness, and blinds their aching sight.