Then with a hoarse voice Jane Marley said, as she held her child with a firmer grasp, 'Why, then, we shall not feel the wind and the cold and the rain and our weariness, we shall say good-bye to a stony world. There is no other refuge for us outcasts. Locked in each other's arms, mother and child must die.'
For a moment Winefred was petrified with horror. For a moment she was unresisting as the powerful woman gathered her up and strode with her to the verge, the water oozing about her from the soaked garments under the pressure.
But it was for a moment only. In that moment it was to Winefred as though she heard the sea in louder tone, multiplied five-fold, laugh and smack its lips, conscious that living beings with human souls were to be given to it to tumble and mumble, to pound on the pebbles and hack on the reefs. It was as though she saw through the darkness the cruel ocean throw up spray-draped arms to catch and clutch her as she fell.
But the moment of pause and paralysis was over. With a shriek and a knotting together of all her powers, and a concentration of all her faculties, she writhed in her mother's arms and fought her. She smote in her face, she tore at her hair, she turned and curled, and gathered herself into one muscular ball, she straightened herself, and threw herself backward in hopes of over-balancing her mother. 'I will not!' she shrieked. 'Let go! I will not.' Instead of freezing rain trickling down her brow, the sweat broke out in scalding drops. Her blood surged and roared in her veins and hammered in her ears. Fire danced before her eyes—then there came a falling. O God!—a falling——
And then a stillness.
'What is this?'
And a light smote into her face.