"Not any more strange than you do," he said, rapidly. "You, too, have changed since that night in here, when the truth was told to both of us. You did not understand then, nor did I; but I know all now, and I will tell you."
And then, in a torrent of almost unintelligible words, he poured forth the tale of his discovery: what had come to him in the study at Crumford Hall, the locket he had found, the letters he had read, the episode of his past he had lived over, the poem which had swept him up among the gods in its reading—all the sequence of facts whose constant reiteration during every unguarded moment had mechanically forced themselves into lasting coherence. She listened with head bent forward, and eyes through which terror, horror, despair, chased each other, then returned and fought together. "It is all true," he cried, in conclusion. "It is all true. Why don't you speak? Cannot you understand?"
She wrenched her hands from his grasp and flung her arms above her head. "Yes," she cried, "I understand. I am a woman for whose sin Time has no mercy; you are a madman, and I am alone!"
"What are you saying?" he demanded, thickly. "You are alone? There is no hope, then?"
"No, there is no hope," she said, "nor has the worst—" She sprang suddenly forward and caught him about the neck. "Oh, Harold!" she cried, "you are not mad. It cannot be! I cannot think of the sin, or care; I only know that I love you! love you! love you! and that if we can be together always the past can go; even—Oh, Harold, speak to me; don't look at me in that way!"
But his arms hung inertly at his sides, and he looked down into her agonized face with a smile. "No hope!" he whispered.
The poor girl dropped in a heap to the floor, as if the life had suddenly gone out of her. Harold gave a little laugh. "No hope!" he said.
She sprang to her feet and flew down the gallery. But he stood where she had left him. She reached the open window, then turned and for a moment faced him again. "No," she cried, "no hope, and no rest or peace;" and then the storm and the night closed over her.
He moved to the window after a moment, and leaning out, called her name. There was no answer but the shrieking of the storm. The black waters had greedily embraced her, and in their depths she would find rest at last. How would she look down there, in some quiet cave, with the sea-weed floating over her white gown, and the pearls in her beautiful hair? How exquisite a thing she would be! The very monsters of the deep would hold their breath as they passed, and leave her unmolested. And the eye of mortal man would never gaze upon her again. There was divinest ecstacy in the thought! Ah! how lovely she was! What a face—what a form!
He staggered back from the window and gave a loud laugh. At last it had been vanquished and broken—that iron hand. He had heard it snap that moment within his brain. And it was pouring upward, that river of song. The elfins had come back, and were quiring like the immortals. She would hear them down there, in her cold, nameless grave, with the ceaseless requiem of the waters above her, and smile and rejoice that death had come to her to give him speech. His brain was the very cathedral of heaven, and there was music in every part of it. The glad shout was ringing throughout nave and transept like the glorious greeting of Christmas morning. "Her face! Her form!" No, no; not that again. They were no part of the burning flood of song which was writhing and surging in his brain. They were not the words which would tell the world—Ah! what was it? "Her face! Her form!—"