"See, your honour, see," cried René, in deepest agitation, "the print of this little shoe, here—and there, and here again, right down to the water's edge. Thank God—thank God! My Lady has had no accident. She has gone with the sailors to the boat. Ah! here the tide has come—we can see no farther."
"But why should she have gone with them?" came, after a moment, Sir Adrian's voice out of the darkness. "Surely that is strange—and yet ... Yes, that is indeed her foot-print in the sand."
"And if your honour will look to sea, he will perceive the ship's lights yonder, upon the water. That is the captain's ship.... Your honour, I must avow to you that I have concealed something from you—it was wrong, indeed, and now I am punished—but that poor Monsieur the Captain, I was so sorry for him, and he so enamoured. He had made a plan to lift off Mademoiselle Madeleine with him to-night, marry her in France; and that was why he came back again, at the risk of his life. He supplicated me not to tell you, for fear you would wish to prevent it, or think it your duty to. Mademoiselle had promised, it seemed, and he was mad with her joy, the poor gentleman! and as sure of her faith as if she had been a saint in Heaven. But My Lady came alone, your honour, as I said. The courage had failed to Mademoiselle, I suppose, at the last moment, and Madame bore a message to the captain. But the captain was not able to leave his ship, it seems; and, my faith," cried Mr. Potter; his spirits rising, as the first ghastly dread left him, "the mystery explains itself! It is quite simple, your honour will see. As the captain did not come to the island, according to his promise to Mademoiselle—he had good reasons, no doubt—Madame went herself to his ship with her message. She had the spirit for it—Ah! if Mademoiselle had had but a little of it to-night, we should not be where we are!"
Sir Adrian caught at the suggestion out of the depths of his despair. "You are right, Renny, you must be right. Yet, on this rough sea, in this black night—what madness! The boat, instantly; and let us row for those lights as we never rowed before!"
Even as the words were uttered the treble glimmer vanished. In vain they strained their eyes: save for the luminous streak cast by their own beacon lamp, the gloom was unbroken.
"His honour will see, a boat will be landing instantly with My Lady safe and sound," said René at last. But his voice lacked confidence, and Sir Adrian groaned aloud.
And so they stood alone in silence, forced into inaction, that most cruel addition to suspense, by the darkness and the waters which hemmed them in upon every side. The vision of twenty dangerous places where one impetuous footfall might have hurled his darling into the cruel beating waves painted themselves—a hideous phantasmagory—upon Sir Adrian's brain. Had the merciless waters of the earth that had murdered the mother, grasped at the child's life also? He raised his voice in a wild cry, it seemed as if the wind caught it from him and tore it into shreds.
"Hark!" whispered René, and clasped his master's icy hand. Like an echo of Sir Adrian's cry, the far-off ring of a human voice had risen from the sea.
Again it came.
"C'est de la mer, Monseigneur!" panted the man; even as he spoke the darkness began to lift. Above their heads, unnoticed, the clouds had been rifted apart beneath the breath of the north wind; the horizon widened, a misty wing-like shape was suddenly visible against the receding gloom.