He drew nearer still. His heart gave a throb. Could it be? Or was the moon weaving some hallucination in his troubled brain? If it was a phantom, it was that of Lady Clementina; if but modelled of the filmy vapours of the moonlight, and the artist his own brain, the phantom was welcome as joy! His spirit seemed to soar aloft in the yellow air, and hang hovering over and around her, while his body stood rooted to the spot, like one who fears by moving nigher to lose the lovely vision of a mirage. She sat motionless, her gaze on the sea. Malcolm bethought himself that she could not know him in his fisher-dress, and must take him for some rude fisherman staring at her. He must go at once, or approach and address her. He came forward at once.
“My lady!” he said.
She did not start. Neither did she speak. She did not even turn her face. She rose first, then turned, and held out her hand. Three steps more, and he had it in his, and his eyes looked straight into hers. Neither spoke. The moon shone full on Clementina’s face. There was no illumination fitter for that face than the moonlight, and to Malcolm it was lovelier than ever. Nor was it any wonder it should seem so to him, for certainly never had the eyes in it rested on his with such a lovely and trusting light in them.
A moment she stood, then slowly sank upon the sand, and drew her skirts about her with a dumb show of invitation. The place where she sat was a little terraced hollow in the slope, forming a convenient seat. Malcolm saw but could not believe she actually made room for him to sit beside her—alone with her in the universe. It was too much; he dared not believe it. And now by one of those wondrous duplications which are not always at least born of the fancy, the same scene in which he had found Florimel thus seated on the slope of the dune, appeared to be passing again through Malcolm’s consciousness, only instead of Florimel was Clementina, and instead of the sun was the moon. And creature of the sunlight as Florimel was, bright and gay and beautiful, she paled into a creature of the cloud beside this maiden of the moonlight, tall and stately, silent and soft and grand.
Again she made a movement. This time he could not doubt her invitation. It was as if her soul made room in her unseen world for him to enter and sit beside her. But who could enter heaven in his work-day garments?
“Won’t you sit by me, Malcolm?” seeing his more than hesitation, she said at last, with a slight tremble in the voice that was music itself in his ears.
“I have been catching fish, my lady,” he answered, “and my clothes must be unpleasant. I will sit here.”
He went a little lower on the slope, and laid himself down, leaning on his elbow.
“Do fresh water fishes smell the same as the sea-fishes, Malcolm?” she asked.
“Indeed I am not certain, my lady. Why?”