That evening the news rapidly spread throughout Pulwick that the cruel sands of the bay had secured yet another victim.
In an almost fainting condition, speechless with horror, and hardly able yet to realise to the full her own anguish, Madeleine was conducted by the terrified groom, through the howling wind and drenching rain, back to the Priory.
And there, between the fearful outcries of Miss Landale, and the deep frowning gravity of her brother, the man stammered out his tale.—How the young lady when the rain first began, had insisted, notwithstanding his remonstrances, upon taking the causeway to the island, and how it was actually by force that he prevented the other lady from following so soon as she understood the danger into which her sister was running.
There was no use, he had thought (explained the man, half apologetically), for two more to throw away their lives, just for no good, that way. And so they had sat on their horses and watched in terror, as well as they could through the torrents of rain. They had seen in the distance Lucifer break from the young lady's control, and swerve from the advancing sea. And then had come the great gust that blew the rain and the sand in their faces and set their horses dancing; and, when they could see again, all traces of horse and rider had disappeared, and there lay nothing before them but the advancing tide, though the island and its tower were still just visible through the storm.
No amount of cross-examination could elicit any further information. The girl's impulse seemed to have been quite sudden, and she had only laughed back at the groom over her shoulder upon his earnest shout of warning, though she had probably expected them to follow her. And as there could be no doubt about the calamity which had ensued, and no possible rescue even of the body, he had returned home at once to bring the disastrous news.
Madeleine had been carried completely unconscious to her bed, but presently Miss Sophia was summoned to her side as the girl showed signs of returning animation, and Rupert was left alone.
He fell to pacing the room, lost in a labyrinth of complicated and far-reaching reflections.
Beyond doubt he was shocked and distressed by the sudden and horrible disaster; and yet as an undercurrent to these first natural thoughts, there ran presently a distinct notion that he would have felt the grievousness of it more keenly had Madeleine perished in that cruel manner and her sister survived to bring the tale home.
The antagonism which his cousin, in all the insolence of her young beauty and vigorous self-esteem, had shown for him had been mutual. He had instinctively felt that she was an enemy, and more than that—a danger to him. This danger was now removed from his path, and by no intervention or even desire of his own.