"Let me go to him!" she shrieked aloud in her anguish of soul. "O Kit! Dead! Dead!"
The words seemed to fall dully on the surrounding wall of fog. No sound; not even an echo answered. Away to the right a single sail flitted ghostlike, showing no hull to support it. On the left close at hand loomed the packet which had wrought so much harm.
Save for these the waters were bare of life, and the girl in the ketch sat looking with frozen gaze, as if she had seen the Gorgon's head, at that spot unmoved now by so much as a ripple, that silent grave which had opened and closed again over a life precious to her beyond aught else that earth held.
As she gazed, she was seized by a sudden madness, following hard upon the stony stillness.
"I will go! I will!" she screamed, struggling with Romney's grasp, which held like steel. She was as powerless in that clasp as a bird in a gauntleted hand.
Of her sense of powerlessness a new emotion was born, a nameless quivering thing that nestled in the heart of her desolation and in that moment of deepest despair struck a peace.
CHAPTER XV
DIGITUS DEI
Much ado there was at St. Gabriel's when it was found that the door of the tobacco-house stood open, and the prisoner was gone. All the more exasperating was it when it proved that there was no one to be blamed or held responsible, because the jailor was gone too.