“He chose his own and surely he will not desert the agent of his choosing.”
“No,” answered the girl.
Her eyes rested a moment upon the silver lake before her and then upon the cliffs beyond. She had an odd desire this evening to get nearer to those walls of granite. A dozen times she had found her eyes turning to them and each time she obeyed the impulse it was followed by a new longing for David. She wished he were here with her now. She wished he was to be with her to-morrow night when Sorez took her out upon the lake with him. She did not mind gazing into the eyes of the image, of sinking under their spell, but now––this time––she would feel better if he were near her. She had a feeling as though he were somewhere near her––as though he were up there near the cliffs which she faced.
CHAPTER XXV
What the Stars Saw
The moon shone broadly over a pool of purplish quicksilver. A ragged fringe of trees bordered it like a wreath. The waters were quiet––very, very quiet. They scarcely rippled the myriad stars which glittered back mockingly at those above. The air over and above it all was the thin air of the skies, not of the earth. It was as silent here as in the purple about the planets. Man seemed too coarse for so fine a setting. Even woman, nearest of all creatures to fairy stuff, must needs be at her best to make a fitting part of this.
From out of the shadows of this fringe of trees there stole silently another shadow. This moved slowly like a funeral barge away from the shore. As it came full into the radius of that silver light (a light matching the dead) it seemed more than ever one with sheeted things, for half prone upon this raft lay a girl whose cheeks were white against the background of her black hair and whose eyes saw nothing of the world about her. She stared more as the dead stare than the living,––stared into the shining eyes of the golden image which she held with rigid arms upon her knees, the image which had entangled so many lives. Her bosom moved rhythmically, slowly, showing 297 that she was not dead. The golden image stared back at her. Its eyes caught the moonbeams in its brilliant surfaces, so that it looked more a living thing than she who held it.
Facing them, standing bolt upright save when he stooped a trifle to reach forward with his paddle, was Sorez, who might have passed for Charon. His thin frame, his hollow cheeks, the intense look of his burning eyes gave him a ghostly air. The raft moved without a sound, scarcely rippling the waters before it, scarcely disturbing in its wake the gaunt shadow cast by Sorez, which followed them like a pursuing spectre. He studied keenly the dumb shores which lay in a broad circumference about them. He could see every yard of the lake and saw that they themselves were the only scar upon its mirror surface.