It was, indeed, a scene of loveliness to the sick man and his sister as they rose and wandered here and there, now gazing into beautiful green glades, now looking up at the delicate lacework of some wonderful tree-fern against the sky, or toward the deep blue sea, with the schooner doubled before them as it lay mirrored in its breast. But bright as it was to them, the beauteous scene was, as it were, covered with ashes to Hester Pugh. The sky might have been dark, and the sun’s light quenched even as was the light of hope in her breast. She had thought that Dutch would have listened to her before now, and that this dreadful cloud of suspicion would have been swept away; but no, he had let her come ashore without a word, as if careless of her fate, and at last, blind with the gathering tears, she had wandered slowly away unnoticed amongst the trees, as she thought, to find some place where she could relieve her bursting heart and throbbing brain of the tears that she had kept back so long.
She sank down at last upon the trunk of a fallen tree, sobbing as if her heart would break, and, as her head sank down upon her hands, she moaned in the bitterness of her spirit.
All was silent for a time, and in her grief she did not hear the rustling amongst the trees, and it was not until her hands were taken and drawn gently from before her face that she looked up, to see, with the blood chilling in her veins, the mulatto upon his knees before her, gazing with glittering eyes, full in hers.
She was too much surprised and frightened to cry out, but she tried to start up and flee. The effort was vain, though, for, tightening his hold of her hands, the man rested his arms upon her knees and kept her a prisoner.
“Hush!” he said; “for your own sake be silent.”
“Let me go,” she panted, hoarsely.
“No, no, beautiful Hester,” he whispered, his voice low with passion. “Why do you pretend that you do not recognise me, when you know me so well?”
“How dare you!” she began, in a loud voice, when the glittering eyes fixed upon hers seemed to fascinate her, and her tongue refused its office.
“How dare I?” he laughed; “because I love you more than even I loved you the first day I saw you in that dark office in miserable, cold England; I loved you when, in those dear ecstatic days, I hung over you in your little home, when that jealous fool, your husband, interrupted our tête-à-têtes with his hateful presence; and now, in this nature’s paradise, I love you more—more dearly than ever, even though I have lived these many weeks only to hear your sweet voice.”
“Lauré!” she panted, with dilating eyes.