But the next who spoke was the admiral, and his words came distinctly to where, with every nerve strained, Stratton stood rooted to the sands.
“Well, I’m sorry,” said Sir Mark, “but we’ve plenty of time. We’ll have a sail another day, and a wander about the sands to-morrow. I’ll charter a boat at Saint Malo, and make her come round. Now, my dears, in with you; it’s getting late.”
“My dears!” Then Myra was there all the time above where he stood; and in the silence and darkness which surrounded him Stratton sank upon his knees, and buried his face in his hands as he offered up a prayer for the safety of his lost love.
He sprang to his feet. The cottage must be close at hand, and in a few moments he was opposite the door of the long, low habitation on its little shelf of the cliff.
All was darker than ever, for the flowing tide had brought with it a chilling mist, but there was no difficulty in finding Brettison’s window, Barron’s being next, at the end of the little house, the nurse and the owner and his wife occupying rooms on the other side of the door.
Everyone had retired; and Stratton hesitated, feeling that he must defer his communication till the morning.
No; impossible. The wife not a hundred feet above where he stood—the convict husband close at hand, where he in his blindness had brought him. At all hazards such a critical position must be ended, and he tapped gently at Brettison’s casement.
There was not a sound in answer, and he tapped again and again more loudly. Then, with a rising sensation of anger that a man could sleep calmly in the midst of such peril, he was about to tap again when he was conscious of a faint sound within, and directly after a voice said softly:
“Who is there?”
“I—Stratton.”