Her face now was covered with her left hand, her right on the tiller: and bitingly she said, with a touch of venom:
'I could make you come—now, if I chose: but I will not: I will wait upon my God....'
'Make me!' I cried: 'Leda! How make me?'
'I could cly before you, as I cly often and often ... in seclet ... for my childlen....'
'You cry in secret? This is news—'
'Yes, yes, I cly. Is not the burden of the world heavy upon me, too? and the work I have to do vely, vely gleat? And often and often I cly in seclet, thinking of it: and I could cly now if I chose, for you love your little girl so much, that you could not lesist me one minute....'
Now I saw the push and tortion and trembling of her poor little under-lip, boding tears: and at once a flame was in me which was altogether beyond control; and crying out: 'why, my poor dear,' I found myself in the act of rushing through the staggering boat to take her to me.
Mid-way, however, I was saved: a whisper, intense as lightning, arrested me: 'Forward is no escape, nor backward, but sideward there may be a way!' And at a sudden impulse, before I knew what I was doing, I was in the water swimming.
The smaller of the islands was two hundred yards away, and thither I swam, rested some minutes, and thence to the Castle. I did not once look behind me.