Margaret rose with a sigh, and looked back through the closing curtain of fog to an island headland misty and vague.
"My heaven—oh, my heaven! our haven, my master!"
Like two newly wakened beings, stunned by the light and sound around them, they stumbled over the wharf. A large sailing vessel was loading there for its voyage,—a Portuguese ship bound for Demerara, so the black sailor said whom Falkner questioned. With a last look at its tall masts they took their way into the city and so to the station.
Here was the same crowd coming from the trains,—the little human motes pushing hither and thither, hurrying from train to train, dashing, dawdling, loitering. Were they the same motes as two days before? Were they always the same,—marionettes wound to perform the clamorous motions of life? Or were they men and women like themselves, with their own great secrets in their hearts? Above all, the secret that transforms! Had these others, too, gone into the great high places?
They walked to the bridge while they waited for the Bedmouth train. Far down the harbor rose the tall masts of the Portuguese ship.
"Bound for Demerara," murmured Falkner, with a smile; "we might be sailing for the Windward Islands?"
"No," Margaret smiled back; "we love too much for that,—you and I."
CHAPTER XLII
Within the old parlor of the Bedmouth house Mrs. Pole was waiting for a step. It came at last.
"The children?" Margaret demanded, kissing the old lady.