“Certainly, if it would be more agreeable to you to do so,” retorted Kate, in a tone of defiant bitterness.
Here a pause occurred in the conversation, which from the first had been carried on defiance against defiance. It was Herbert’s turn to speak; but the challenge conveyed in Kate’s last words placed him in a position where it was not easy to make an appropriate rejoinder, and he remained silent.
It was now the crisis of the eclipse—the moment of deepest darkness. The sun’s disc had become completely obscured by the opaque orb of the night, and the earth lay lurid under the sombre shadow. Stars appeared in the sky, to show that the universe still existed; and those voices of the forest heard only in nocturnal hours, came pealing up to the summit of the rock—a testimony that terrestrial nature was not yet extinct.
It was equally a crisis between two loving hearts. Though standing near, those wild words had outlawed them from each other, far more than if ten thousand miles extended between them. The darkness without was naught to the darkness within. In the sky there were stars to delight the eye; from the forest came sounds to solace the soul; but no star illumined the horizon of their hearts with its ray of hope—no sound of joy cheered the silent gloom that bitterly embraced them.
For some minutes not a word was exchanged between the cousins, nor spoken either to those who were their sharers in the spectacle. These, too, were silent. The solemnity of the scene had made its impression upon all; and, against the dark background of the sky, the figures of all four appeared in sombre silhouette—motionless as the rock on which they stood.
Thus for some minutes stood Herbert and Kate without exchanging word or thought. Side by side they were, so near and so silent, that each might have heard the breathing of the other.
The situation was one of painful embarrassment, and might have been still more so, but for the eclipse; which, just then complete, shrouded both in the deep obscurity of its shadow, and hindered them from observing one another.
Only for a short while did the darkness continue; the eclipse soon re-assuming the character of a penumbra.
One by one the stars disappeared from the canopy of the sky—now hastening to recover its azure hue. The creatures of darkness, wondering at the premature return of day, sank cowering into a terrified silence; and the god of the heavens, coming forth triumphantly from the cloud that had for a short while concealed him, once more poured his joyous effulgence upon the earth.
The re-dawning of the light showed the cousins still standing in the same relative position—unchanged even as to their attitudes.