“When rogues fall out!” I was thinking to myself. “I shall save her yet—I shall save my darling!”
Already I was accustomed to the thought that she still lived, and to the big heart she had set beating in my feeble frame; already the continued existence of these villains, with the first dim inkling of their villainy, was ceasing to be a novelty in a brain now quickened and prehensile beyond belief. And yet—but a few minutes had I knelt at the window—but a few more was it since Rattray and I had shaken hands!
Not his visitor; his prisoner, without a doubt; but alive! alive! and, neither guest nor prisoner for many hours more. O my love! O my heart's delight! Now I knew why I was spared; to save her; to snatch her from these rascals; to cherish and protect her evermore!
All the past shone clear behind me; the dark was lightness and the crooked straight. All the future lay clear ahead it presented no difficulties yet; a mad, ecstatic confidence was mine for the wildest, happiest moments of my life.
I stood upright in the darkness. I saw her light!
It was ascending the tower at the building's end; now in this window it glimmered, now in the one above. At last it was steady, high up near the stars, and I stole below.
“Eva! Eva!”
There was no answer. Low as it was, my voice was alarming; it cooled and cautioned me. I sought little stones. I crept back to throw them. Ah God! her form eclipsed that lighted slit in the gray stone tower. I heard her weeping high above me at her window.
“Eva! Eva!”
There was a pause, and then a little cry of gladness.