“Why, Madge!” he exclaimed. “You quite frightened me. Where have you been?”
“Don’t touch me—don’t speak to me, Mr Trethick,” she said, in a sharp, harsh voice.
“But I shall speak to you, and I shall touch you,” said Geoffrey, with a quiet firmness. “There, let your arm rest there. Hang on to me as much as you like: you are weak and excited, and ready to faint. There, let’s walk steadily back. Don’t hurry. Take off your veil, and let the sea-breeze blow upon your face; it will revive you.”
“Oh—oh—oh!” came softly as a whisper from beneath that veil, as Geoffrey’s words seemed to change the spirit that was burning in the poor girl’s breast; and, weakly and helplessly enough now, she hung upon his arm, and suffered him to lead her onward towards the Cove.
At the end of a few hundred yards they drew near the opening in the huge cliff where the ruined engine-house and mining shaft were, and here they came suddenly upon old Mr Paul, sitting upon a block of stone, with his hands resting upon the head of his great cane.
The old man looked more himself, and there was a grim air of satisfaction in his face as he saw the couple approaching.
Geoffrey felt his companion give a spasmodic start, and she stopped short as if her legs had failed her, uttering at the same moment a low moan, as she saw her uncle rise from his seat and come towards them, looking first at one and then at the other. Then he just nodded his head at them gravely, and walked on in the opposite direction.
Geoffrey gave an impatient stamp with his foot as he turned and saw the old man disappear.
“Poor old boy!” he said. “There’s something about him I like, Madge, and I’m bursting with eloquence now—full of things I want to say to him, but hang me if I could speak when he was here.”
“Take me home,” said Madge, softly; “I mean to the Cove.”