Thus began a state of affairs which, as the days succeeded each other without news of Sir Adrian, became every moment more intolerable to his loyalty. The inaction, the solitary hours of reflection; the maddening feeling of unavailing proximity to his heart's dearest, of impotency against the involving meshes of the present false and hateful position; all this had brought into the young man's soul a fever of anger, which, as fevers will, consumed him the more fiercely because of his vigour and strength.
It was with undisguised hatred and with scorn immeasurable that he now surveyed the woman who had degraded him in his own eyes. At another time Molly might have yielded before his resentment, but at this hour her whole being was encompassed by a single thought.
"It is for you—for you!" she repeated with ashen lips; "you must go before it is too late."
"And is it not too late?" stormed he. "Too late, indeed, do I see my treachery to Adrian, my more than brother! Upon my ship I could not avoid your company, but here—Oh, I should have thought of him and not of myself, and done as my honour bade me! You are right; since you would not go, I should have done so. It was weak; it was mad; worse, worse—dishonourable!"
But she had no ears for his reproaches, no power to feel the wounds he dealt her woman's heart with such relentless hand.
"Then you will go," she cried. "Tell René, the signal."
He started and looked at her with a different expression.
"Have you heard anything; has anything happened?" he asked, recovering self-restraint at the thought of danger.
"Not yet," she replied, "not yet, but it is coming."
Her look and voice were so charged with tragic force that for the moment he was impressed, and, brave man though he was, felt a little cold thrill run down his spine. She continued, in accents of the most piercing misery: