But, this being so, what was the occasion of his sudden change of purpose? Was he penitent? or had he found that honour and expediency could be made compatible after all? The letter which he had written to Jael did not explicitly answer this question; but from hints which it contained, the housekeeper had drawn favourable inferences; and she looked forward to his coming with agreeable anxiety. She had told Gloam the news, intending (should he refuse a reconciliation) to acknowledge to him that his father was David’s likewise. But his strange behaviour had frightened this purpose out of her head; and when she recollected it again, it seemed most advisable that the revelation should for the present be postponed.
X.
About sunset Jael was surprised by the beginning of a jarring and rumbling noise, the like of which had not been heard in the gorge for a number of weeks past. Half incredulous of the evidence of her own ears, she paused to listen. Certainly there was no mistake—the mill was going! She stepped to the window and looked out. Yes, there revolved the great black wheel heavily upon its axle, churning the headlong torrent into foam, and hurling the white froth from its rigid rims. As she gazed, astonished, she saw Gloam issue from the mill and stand beside the boiling mill-race, watching, with manifest excitement, the sullen churning of the huge machine. He wore no hat, his hair was tossed and tangled, his bearing reckless and wild. All at once (for the machinery, having been so long out of use, had doubtless become very rusty) an unearthly peal of laughter—or what seemed such—was launched upon the evening air. It partly died away; then it again burst forth, clinging to the listener’s ears and stabbing them, and leaving a sting that rankled there long afterwards. In the midst of the infernal din, Jael saw Gloam toss up his arms and abandon himself to a sympathetic paroxysm of grisly merriment. The man and the machinery were possessed by one and the same demon.
“Master—Master Gloam!” cried the woman, throwing open the window and lifting her voice to her shrillest pitch, “what is the matter? Why have you set the mill going?”
He glanced up at her with wild eyes, and waved his hand. “It is a season of rejoicing,” he answered. “The prayer that I prayed is coming to pass. Therefore let the wheel go round. Hear it, how it laughs and rejoices!”
“But there is no grist—the mill is empty.”
“It will not be empty long; the grist is coming. It comes! it comes! Let the great wheel go round and grind it to powder!”
Jael drew back with a sickening apprehension at her heart. Gloam was too plainly in a state of delirious frenzy, if he were not actually mad. She longed for David’s appearance, and yet dreaded it; she knew not whether the meeting between the two men would issue well or ill. And then her mind reverted to Swanhilda, and she asked herself what the effect of her lover’s presence would be upon her. Ever since the first week following upon his departure the young mother had maintained a singularly passive demeanour, only occasionally disturbed by seasons of vague and tremulous anxiety. The housekeeper had looked in upon her several times that afternoon. She lay quietly in one position, her eyes open and fixed, save when the baby claimed her attention. She did not speak, and seemed scarcely aware of outward things. Even the uproar of the mill, when that began, commanded her notice but for a short time, and appeared rather to gratify than to distress her. She perhaps associated it with the thought of David, and fancied it in some way indicative of that home-return which she had all along never allowed herself to despair of. But she was as one partly entranced, whose ears and eyes, as some believe, are opened to things beyond the ordinary ken of human senses.
The evening was cloudy, and night came on apace. Gloam had re-entered the house shortly after dark, and Jael presently went to his room to ask him where he would take his evening meal. But he met her in the upper passage-way. He seemed to carry something in his hand. She could not make out what it was, and he immediately hid it beneath his coat. To her inquiries he replied that he was going forth to resume his old practice of walking, and that he would sup with David after his return. Jael, in her uneasiness, would gladly have persuaded him to remain at home; but he was obstinate against all entreaties, and finally pushed roughly by her and was gone.