She walked rapidly, like one still acting under a high pressure of excitement.
She reached the boat-house, which was no longer kept locked. She passed through it and went out upon the beach, for it was now low tide.
There she found a little boat that she had sometimes been in the habit of rowing, near the shore.
Now she got into it, put down her hand-bag and her muff, unhooked the boat-chain and threw it ashore, took the oar and pushed the boat off the sands, then seated herself and rowed for the little sandy island. The water was perfectly smooth, and her arms were braced by a strange, tense resolve. She sped swiftly over the intervening half mile, and in ten minutes reached her destination. She drew in her oar, and using it as a pole, struck it into the sands and pushed the boat up on the beach.
Then she picked up her hand-bag and muff and sprang ashore.
For a moment she stood still, looking all around for a chance sight of David Lindsay; for maddened as she was at this moment, there was “method” enough in that “madness” to make her unwilling to go on to the cottage and meet the placid, steady, conscientious Dame Lindsay.
She soon descried the young fisherman. He was standing on the shore at some distance, bending over an upturned boat, engaged in repairing it. His position prevented him from seeing, and the sound of his own hammer from hearing her approach, of which he remained quite unconscious even when she stood by his side.
She had nerved herself for the trial before her, yet now it seemed as if all the blood had forsaken her extremities and curdled about her heart, so pallid was her face.
She stood for a moment at his side while he continued to hammer industriously at his work, quite unconscious of her presence, until she spoke to him in a low tone.
“David Lindsay.”