Ought I not to have been glad at all this—to have watched her pale, suffering face with satisfaction, and even with inward joy. Was she not in trouble greater than any I could bring upon her, and, indeed, had I not had a hand in it? Was it not I who had driven her son out into this danger? Should I not have rejoiced? Alas! alas! how could I, when my own heart was beating fast in a very agony of sickening fear.
My little pupil was away for the day—gone to play with the clergyman's children down in the village, and my time was my own. I was thankful, for I could not possibly have forced myself into the wearisome routine of lesson hearing and teaching. Solitude was my only relief.
The day wore on. Servants had been sent to every point along the coast, and the harbor master at Yarmouth had been telegraphed to every hour. I stood by my window, looking out in the fast gathering twilight, until I could bear it no longer. Dashing the tears from my face, I caught up a thick cloak, and running softly down the back stairs, left the house unobserved.
At first I could scarcely stand, and, indeed, as I turned the corner of the avenue and faced the sea, a gust of wind carried me off from my feet, and I had to cling to the low iron railings for support. The thunder of the storm and the waves seemed to shake the air around me. The sky was dark and riven with faint flashes of stormlight, which slanted down to the sea. By hard struggling I managed to make my way on to the cliffs, and stood there, looking downward, with my arm passed round a tall fir sapling for support. What a night it was! The spray of the waves breaking against the cliff leaped up into my face mingled with the blinding rain, and dimmed my vision so that I could only catch a faint view of the boiling, seething gulf below. Beyond, all was chaos; for a gray haze floated upon the water and met the low hanging clouds. And clear above the deep thunder of the sea came the shrill yelling of the wind in the pine groves which fringed the cliffs, sounding like the demoniacal laughter of an army of devils. Shall I ever forget the horror of that day, I wonder! I think not! It is written upon a page of my memory in characters over which time can have no power.
And in that moment of agony, when my thoughts were full of his peril, I wrestled no longer with my secret; I knew that I loved him. I knew that he was dear to me as no other man could be. I knew that I was face to face with a misery unchanging and unending.
Were not the fates themselves fighting against me in my task? That it should be, of all men upon this earth, he, the son of the woman whose death would be at my door. A murderess! Should I be that! The wind caught up the word which had burst from my pale lips, and I seemed to hear it echoed with fiendish mirth among the bending tree tops of the plantation. A murderess! and of his mother, the mother whom he loved so fondly! If he should know it! If the day should come when my sin should be laid bare, and he should know that he had given his love to such a one. Sin! Was it a sin? Was my love turning the whole world upside down? Had it seemed so to me before? Was it sin or justice! Oh! to whom should I look for strength to hold me to my purpose. To pray would be blasphemous. For me there was no God, no friend on earth, no heaven! I could only think of that one shattered life, and hug it to my memory.
I wandered backward and forward in the storm, drenched and cold, yet all unmindful of my state. I could have borne no roof over my head in those hours of my agony. The thought of his danger maddened me. Even though I knew so well that he could be nothing to me; that if he knew the truth, he would loathe me; that soon the day would come when I should scarcely dare to raise my eyes to his before we parted forever. All these things seemed to make me long the more passionately to look once more into his face, to know that he was safe. It was my fault that he was in this danger. Horrible thought!
I was exhausted; worn out in body and mind by the sickening fears which no effort of will seemed able to quell. Even my limbs at last gave way beneath me, and I sank upon my knees, holding my face in my hands. Had the edge of the cliff been a little nearer, could I have done it without any physical effort, I had been content to close my eyes, and throw myself into the sea. If there are no joys in death, at least there is rest.
Then a voice came to me.
"Margharita!"