“We are meant for each other. It was not blind fate that cast us together. Does no voice tell you this? I hear it in my heart.”
The abandonment, the mystery of the gathering dusk, touched Maggie's fancy. They were alone in the twilight, and it was full of the romance of a rising tide.
“Never did I know such happiness; I am supremely happy, alone with you beneath this sky, listening to the vague, wild voice of the sea. It would be bitter sweet to die in such a triumphant hour. Supposing wewere to lie here and allow the sea to take us away.”
“No, I don't want to die. I want to live and enjoy my life.”
The answer fell a little chillingly on Frank's rapture. Then after a pause, Maggie said: “I think I have read of that somewhere—in anovel—lovers caught by the tide.”
“Yes, I daresay you have. I was thinking of two lovers who were so overcome with happiness that they decided that they would not trust themselves again to the waves and storms of life, but would let the calm, slow tide of death take them away with all their happiness unassoiled.”
Maggie did not answer. The double fear had come upon her—first, that the tide might rise higher than usual and cut off their retreat. Secondly, that Frank—he was a poet—might insist on remaining there and being drowned. Getting up, she said: “I do not know what father will say when I get home, really it is quite dark. Come, Frank.”
“Death is better than a life of abomination—loss of innocence, and of delight in simple things. I ask you,” he said, stopping her suddenly.
“Yes, no doubt it is so; but I want to get home. Do go on, Frank.”
“I will save you from a life of abomination—in other words I will save you from him; he shall not get you. I have sworn it; you did notknow that when you were lying down on the beach—you had ceased speaking, and in the silence my life seemed stirred to its very essence; and I knew that I must struggle against him, and conquer. I want to know this: Have you ever thought of what your life would be with him? Have you ever thought what he is?”