“He is an honourable man; he has never said a word of love to me. He knows nothing of my love for him. He at least is innocent.”
“If he be indeed a true man he would, I know, give you counsel which I now offer to you; even if he suspected—and I cannot but think that if he sees you and converses with you, no matter how seldom, he will suspect—the sad truth—he will leave your side and so give you an opportunity of forgetting him, and all may be well.”
“Ah, sir, think you that 'tis so easy to forget?”
“Have you not just given me an instance of it, Nelly? But no; I will not think that you have forgotten the one to whom you gave your promise. I like rather to believe that that affection remains unchanged in your heart, although it be for a while obscured. You remember how we lost our way on the morning of yesterday? We saw not the shore; 'twas wreathed in mist; but the solid shore was here all the same, and in another hour a break dispersed the mist which up till then had been much more real to us than the shore; the mist once gone, we saw the substance where we had seen the shadow. Ah, dear child, how often is not the shadow of a love taken for the true—the abiding love itself. Now dry your tears and tell me when you expect your true lover to come to you.”
“He may arrive at any time. He will come by the first vessel that leaves Bristol river. He must have left already. Oh, that sail out there may be carrying him hither—that sail——”
She stopped suddenly, and made a shade of one hand over her eyes while she gazed seaward. After a few moments of gazing she sprang to her feet crying:
“The boats—you see them out there? What has happened that they are flying for the shore? They should not be returning until the night.”
He looked out across the waters and saw the whole fleet of fishing smacks making for the shore with every sail spread.
“Perhaps the boats have been unusually successful and thus have no need to tarry on the fishing ground,” he suggested.
She remained with her eyes upon them for a long time. A look of bewilderment was upon her face while she cried: