His voice was thick and hoarse; it petrified her, so still was she—so dumb; and at that moment the knocker sounded, and importunate voices were demanding the Laird of Otter.
He obeyed the summons, spoke with his servants a little time, and returned to find Leslie in the same arrested posture, with the same blanched face. He had resumed his seaman's coat, and carried his cap in his hand. He was calm now, and smiling, but with a face wan and shadowed with an inexpressible cloud.
"It may not be, Leslie," he said, soft and low; "Nigel Boswell's boat is in sight, struggling to make Earlscraig; he was always rash and unskilled, though seaward born and bred. If he is not forestalled, his boat will be bottom upmost, or crushed like glass within the hour. I trust I will save him; but if there be peril and death in my path, then listen to what I say, and remember it. Whatever has gone before, at this moment I am yours; you may doubt it, deny it—I swear it, Leslie. Despise me, reject me if you will; I cannot perish misinterpreted and misjudged. I loved Alice Boswell. My love is ashes with its object. I did not love you once; I love you now. I love a living woman truer, higher, holier than the dead; and for my love's sake, not for my vows—the first for love, if it be the last."
He had her in his arms; his lingering kisses were on her eyes, her hair, her hands. He was gone, and still she remained rooted to the ground. Was it amazement, anger, terror?—or was it a wild throb of exultation for that, the real moment of their union? or because she had won him, and was his who had slighted her, sinned against her—but who was still Hector Garret, manly, wise, and noble—the hero of her girlhood.
She was roused reluctantly by the entrance of Bridget Kennedy, shaking in every limb.
"Madam, why did you let Master Hector go?—he has had the look of a doomed man this many a day. It is thus that men are called, as plain as when the Banshee cries. Madam, say your prayers for Master Hector while he is still in life."
"I must go to him, Bridget; I must follow him. Don't try to keep me. He is my husband, too. The poor women were crowding on the beach this morning. Let me go!"
She understood that he was exposing himself for another—that his life hung on the turning of a straw. She ran upstairs, but she did not seek her child, and when she descended, Bridget had still to fetch her mantle and bonnet. The old woman did not seek to detain her, but ejaculated through her chattering teeth, as she peered out after her and wrung her hands, "She will bring the Master back, if anything can; nought will harm her. I, poor miserable wretch, would but clog her swiftness. Ay, he will hearken to her voice; he has been waiting for the sound weeks and months. Who would have said that Master Hector, like Samson, would twice be given a prey to a woman! He will hear her above the winds and waves; body or soul, he will obey her, as he did Alice Boswell twenty years ago in fire and ruin."
Leslie hurried on in the darkness, her little feet tripping, her slight form borne back by the blast. Not thus had she wandered on those sunny, summer days when she first knew Otter; but there was that within, in the midst of her distress, that she would not have resigned for that light life twice over.
She reached the beach; the roar of the surf and the shriek of the wind were in her ears, but no human presence was visible. There flashed back upon her the vision of her hopelessness and helplessness on such another blustering, raging night—but the recollection brought no comfort. She paused in dismay, with nothing but the mist and the driving rain before her. Stay! obscurely, and at intervals, she caught sight of a light, now borne on the crest of these giant waves, now sunk and lost. Hark! a pistol-shot! that must be Boswell's appeal for aid; and yonder lay Earlscraig—yonder also was Hector toiling to rescue his ancient friend and persistent foe. She should be there too. At Earlscraig their destiny would be wrought out.