"Are you raving, Christie! In Heaven's name, what eyes, what knife, are you speaking of?" he said, beginning to think she had lost her reason.
"Oh, Willard! Willard! just as you folded me in your arms, and called me your wife, Sibyl Campbell's fierce, wild, black eyes rose before me, glaring on me like burning coals, and then I felt two strong hands clutch my throat, and a knife plunged into my breast! Oh, saints in heaven! it rises before me yet."
"Christie, you are mad!" he said, vehemently; but the ashen paleness that overspread his face told the sudden shock the name of Sibyl had given him.
In all the terror, horror, and momentary frenzy of that instant, the fear of his displeasure conquered every other feeling in her breast. Shaking off, with an effort, the creeping dread that was palsying every nerve, she clung to his arm with renewed confidence, and said, with a deep breath of relief:
"I believe I was, for the moment, Willard; but that has passed now. You are not angry with me, dearest Willard?" she said, anxiously, observing the cloud that still overspread his fine face.
"Angry? not at all!" he said, gravely. "Only sorry and surprised to think you should give way to such extraordinary delusions."
"Oh, Willard! it was not a delusion. I saw it all, as plainly as I see you now. Oh, those dreadful, dreadful eyes! they will haunt me to my dying day!"
"Do not think of it again, my own love, and do not look so wild," he said, soothingly. "Come, let us be going; the moon will soon rise, and it will be late before we reach the isle."
"And Aunt Tom will be anxious," said Christie. "And that reminds me of her commission, which I had nearly forgotten. When we reach the store, you can wait outside. I will join you in a moment."
The moon was just rising when they set sail for the isle, which Christie had left a child, and was returning a wife. Ah! where was their better angel in that dark moment of madness and temptation?