"Because," and she began to laugh without making any sound, her mouth twitching, her shoulders shaking, "because I am to be married to-day at noon!"
"To-day! but you said——"
"I lied."
"You lied—to me!"
She made a little sound which reminded him of an animal agonising in a trap, whilst the fury of his own pain drove him to hurt her even more.
"Why—lie?"
"Why?" her eyes blazed as she defied the storm, her hell and fate. "Why?—because I love you, because I love you so much that I wanted to cheat life out of one month of happiness. And I have had it—I have had it—and I love you——"
She flung her hands up to the stormy skies and brought them down, clenched against her breast. "I love you, God hear me, I love you!"
And with a terrible cry that went wailing out to sea she fled away through the lash of the blinding storm.