A slight color gleamed over the brow of Alice Dunscombe, as she uttered, in a voice that was barely audible:
“There is no longer a reason why the world should know of such a weakness, though it did exist.” And, as the faint glow passed away, leaving her face pale nearly as the hue of death, her eyes kindled with unusual fire, and she added: “They can but take my life, John; and that I am ready to lay down in your service!”
“Alice!” exclaimed the softened Pilot, “my kind, my gentle Alice—”
The knock of the sentinel at the door was heard at this critical moment. Without waiting for a reply to his summons, the man entered the apartment; and, in hurried language, declared the urgent necessity that existed for the lady to retire. A few brief remonstrances were uttered by both Alice and the Pilot, who wished to comprehend more clearly each other's intentions relative to the intended escape: but the fear of personal punishment rendered the soldier obdurate, and a dread of exposure at length induced the lady to comply. She arose, and was leaving the apartment with lingering steps, when the Pilot, touching her hand, whispered to her impressively:
“Alice, we meet again before I leave this island forever?”
“We meet in the morning, John,” she returned in the same tone of voice, “in the apartments of Miss Howard.”
He dropped her hand, and she glided from the room, when the impatient sentinel closed the door, and silently turned the key on his prisoner. The Pilot remained in a listening attitude, until the light footsteps of the retiring pair were no longer audible, when he paced his confined apartment with perturbed steps, occasionally pausing to look out at the driving clouds and the groaning oaks that were trembling and rocking their broad arms in the fitful gusts of the gale. In a few minutes the tempest in his own passions had gradually subsided to the desperate and still calmness that made him the man he was; when he again seated himself where Alice had found him, and began to muse on the events of the times, from which the transition to projecting schemes of daring enterprise and mighty consequences was but the usual employment of his active and restless mind.