"Grasp the drift? You are the drift. You must help me to make my life, I must help you to make yours; that is what it means. If we do our duty to each other, surely we ought, then, to pull through?"
"I am afraid of myself, Esther. Not afraid of my love for you, but afraid of the slowness of Time, of the gradual development of things."
"Are we not getting a little out of our depth, love? I want to know nothing but your love for me, that is all. Let us leave the subject. See how vivid the lightning is getting. I fear we are in for a storm."
And in truth the flashes were growing almost alarming. Heavy thunder echoed among the islands, and the wind was every moment increasing in violence. Suddenly an awful flash seemed to tear the very heavens asunder. In that brief instant Ellison made out the figure of a man standing in the open before them, not more than forty yards from the veranda steps. His back was towards them, and his hands were uplifted above his head. Esther saw him too, and uttered a little cry.
"Who can it be?" she exclaimed in alarm. "Cuthbert, call him in! He will be struck by the lightning!"
She had hardly spoken before another flash rent the darkness. Still the figure stood before them exactly where they had first seen it. But this time his identity was unmistakable. It was Murkard! When the next flash came he was gone.
"What could he have been doing?" Esther asked, as the thunder rolled away. To her Murkard's ways were always a matter of much mystery.
"I can't think. Thank goodness, he doesn't often act in that fashion."
"I am afraid of him, Cuthbert. I have never been able to make myself take to him as I took to you."
"He is a difficult man to know, that is why, little woman. But he is as good as gold! A queer fish, perhaps a little mad, but with it all a better man than I am."