She drew a long, deep breath, recalling his look, his touch, his voice. Ah! Midsummer madness indeed! But she could not stay to face it. She must go. The way was still open behind her. She would escape as she had come, a fugitive from the force that pursued her so relentlessly. She would not suffer herself to be made a captive. She would go.
Again she drew a long breath, but curiously it broke, as if a sharp spasm had gripped her heart. She stood, struggling with herself. And then suddenly she dropped upon her knees by the sill with her arms flung wide and her head with its cloudy mass of hair bowed low.
"O God! O God!" she whispered convulsively. "Save me from this! Help me to go—while I can! I am so tired—so tired!"
CHAPTER VIII
THE HONOURS OF WAR
Columbus was not accustomed to being awakened in the early June morning and taken for a scamper when the sun was still scarcely two hours up. He arose blinking at his mistress's behest, and but for her brisk urging he would have turned over again and slept. But Juliet was insistent.
"I'm going down to the shore, you old sleepy-head," she told him. "Don't you want to come?"
She herself had scarcely slept throughout the brief night, and a great yearning for the sunshine and the sea was upon her. The solitude of the beach drew her irresistibly. It was Sunday morning, and she knew that no one but herself would be up for hours. She had grown to love it so, the silence and the shining emptiness and the marvel of the sea. She could not remember any other place that had ever attracted her in the same way. It suited every mood.
There was a short cut across the park, and she and Columbus took it, hastening over the dewy grass till they reached a path that led to the cliffs and the shore. Only the larks above them and the laughing waves before, made music in this world of the early morning. The peacefulness of it was like a benediction.
"And before the Throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal…." She found herself murmuring the words, for in that morning purity it seemed to her that the very ground beneath her feet was holy. She was conscious of a throbbing desire to reach out to the Infinite, to bring her troubled spirit to the Divine waters of healing.