I saw that by her pale cheeks and the dark circles round her eyes. She looked away from me, and pointed out of the window at which we were standing, which now was but a window-space, for the storm had blown in all the stained panes except one in one corner.
"Is that not terrible?" she said.
And it was terrible indeed. Sky and sea of a leaden gray, and between sea and sky whirling white specks like snowflakes driven by a November wind. These white specks were gulls, and their dismal cries reached us at intervals. Upon the high bastion, opposite us, the storm had beaten down the tall grass which used to nod so lightly in the wind, as flat as if heavy rollers had passed over it; and over the long, low rampart from time to time appeared streaks which at first I could not account for. Could they be the crests of waves? The thing seemed impossible. The rampart, as I knew, was more than twelve feet high, and in front of it was a wide sandy beach, on which a popular bathing-establishment had been erected. Over the rampart a glimpse of the sea might always be caught, but it was at a considerable distance; but these streaks, if they were waves, were not dancing out at sea; I saw plainly how they rose, fell, tumbled over, and beaten to foam and spray flew over the rampart. It was the surf, and the surf had risen to the crest of the rampart!
"What will come of it?" asked Paula.
It was the very question which I had asked myself yesterday evening at this identical place, though in another and very different sense. I was then only thinking of her who now stood before me, and looked up to me with large, terrified eyes; but in my spirit, confused by the sleepless night I had passed, nature and human destiny mingled inextricably together:
"Paula," I said.
She glanced up to me again.
"Paula," I repeated, and my voice trembled and my hand sought hers, "if the storm of life ever rages around you as that is raging--will you turn to me for help and protection? Will you, Paula? say!"
A bright flush reddened her pale cheeks; she drew her hand, which I did not venture to detain, out of mine.
"You are one of those good men, George, who desire to help all, and upon whom, therefore, all think they have claims."