Markworth walked on rapidly, Susan keeping up with difficulty by his side, through the town, which was now partly overhung by the sea-fog, up to the heights of Ingouville, where the air was clearer, and the lights shone out from the trim little rows of villa residences.
The promenade was quite deserted; but Markworth proceeded without speaking a word until he had passed all the houses, and had reached a lonely part of the road, with the cliff above the footpath, and a precipitous descent on the other side nearest the town, below which was the zigzag street, up which they had come.
Markworth now stopped suddenly, seeing that Susan was quite out of breath from the exertions she had made to keep up with him.
“At last,” he said, “I can speak to you quietly;” and he paused a second, as if to think over his words.
He did not know that Nemesis was close behind him, for it was nearly dark: the thud of the sea in the distance, splashing against the pier, and the sound of the waters of the Seine at their embouchure, mingling with the tide, drowned even the sound of a passing footstep.
It was a crisis in Markworth’s fate.
“Susan,” he said, abruptly, “I have to leave you. I have to go away for a long time, and I shall send you back to-morrow to your people in England.”
He spoke rapidly. To do him justice, he knew what a pang it would be to the poor girl; but he could not possibly take her with him, so he was anxious to get the “scene,” as he called it, over as quickly as he could.
“Oh, Allynne! Allynne!” she cried out, piteously; “you are not going to leave me! I shall die if I go back there!”
And she flung her arms round his neck, as if to hold him for ever. He was her life, her all!