Such was our last evening in Clovelly; a very quiet one, for the charm of the place lay upon us and we were loath to leave it. It was warm and balmy, and the moonlight lay upon the beach. Egeria leaned against the parapet, the serge of her dress showing white against the background of rock. The hood of her dark blue yachting-cape was slipping off her head, and her eyes were as deep and clear as crystal pools.
Presently she began to sing,—first, “The Sands o’ Dee,” then,—
“Three fishers went sailing out into the west,
Out into the west as the sun went down;
Each thought of the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town.”
Egeria is one of the few women who can sing well without an accompaniment. She has a thrilling voice, and what with the scene, the hour, and the pathos of Kingsley’s verses, tears rushed into my eyes, and Bill Marks’ words came back to me—“Two-and-twenty men drowned; that’s what it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown.”
Atlas gazed at her with eyes that no longer cared to keep their secret. Mrs. Jack was still uncertain; for me, I was sure. Love had rushed past him like a galloping horseman, and shooting an arrow almost without aim, had struck him full in the heart, that citadel that had withstood a dozen deliberate sieges.
It was midnight, and our few belongings were packed. Egeria had come to the Inn to sleep, and stole into my room to warm her toes before the blaze in my grate, for I was chilly and had ordered a sixpenny fire. When I say that she came in to warm her toes, I am asking you to accept her statement, not mine; it is my opinion that she came in for no other purpose than to tell me something that was in her mind and heart pleading for utterance.
I didn’t help her by leading up to the subject, because I thought her fib so flagrant and unnecessary; accordingly, we talked over a multitude of things,—Phoebe and Jem and their hard-hearted parents, our visit to Cardiff and Ilfracombe, Bill Marks and his wife, the service at the church, and finally her walk with Atlas in the churchyard.
“We went inside,” said Egeria, “and I copied the inscription on the bronze tablet that Atlas liked so much on Sunday: ‘Her grateful and affectionate husband’s last and proudest wish will be that whenever Divine Providence shall call him hence, his name may be engraved on the same tablet that is sacred in perpetuating as much virtue and goodness as could adorn human nature.’” Then she went on, with apparent lack of sequence: “Penelope, don’t you think it is always perfectly safe to obey a Scriptural command, because I have done it?”
“Did you find it in the Old or the New Testament?”
“The Old.”