“What a funny world we live in, to be sure!” he said to himself as he went. “I come away from London for the purpose of pulling myself together and learning, if possible, to forget this girl, and I arrive to find her here before me. Is there a destiny in this? Or is it only mere chance?” Then came a thought that made his pulses thrill. “Shall I dare my fate? Shall I speak and know the worst—hear from her lips the confirmation of what my heart tells me is true?”
The blustering wind had almost gone, but the rain was falling.
Dark as the evening was—extraordinarily dark for August—it was possible for Valentine to scan the shore and to distinguish at once if any person was moving on it.
He stood and looked carefully over the expanse of low-stretching rocks, and he was about to turn away, convinced that he must look for Polly in some other direction, when the flutter of something white in the distance caught his eye.
The heavy storm clouds parted at that instant, and permitted a flicker of pale moonlight to streak the sea and the shore, and as he stood still, hesitating, the white fluttering came to him this time quite clearly.
“It is a signal. Some one is there!” he said to himself. Then, like lightning, came the thought, “It is she, and she is hurt!”
Forthwith he started to get down to the spot where the white showed, and he soon found it was by no means an easy undertaking. The rocks gave but poor footing for his powerful steps, and he had pretty quickly to fling aside his hampering mackintosh and pursue his way with as little plunging as possible.
By degrees he drew nearer to where he imagined Polly to be. Just before approaching her he called aloud.
“Hello! Is anyone there?” he said, and his voice was not in the least like his usual voice.
It was Polly who answered him, undoubtedly and assuredly Polly.