“No,” declared Vytal, anxious in his bewilderment to console her as best he might, and looking down at her for the first time as at a child. “No, I knew not you were coming. I believed that I was saying farewell.”
The tears lingered on her lashes without falling. An unreadable expression came into her face, whether entirely of relief, as Vytal thought, or with a slight trace of regret and shame, deep-hidden, she herself could not have told.
“I thought you had found out,” she almost whispered at last.
“Nay, I had no chance to seek you. I was pledged to come. Otherwise I would have sought till—”
“Stay,” she exclaimed, imperatively, “you must not speak so!”—and then, in lower tones—“but if of my coming you had no knowledge, is it not yet more the work of Fate?”
“Or of God.”
“Nay, God is good.” There was naught in her voice now save sadness blent with doubt. “Perhaps I misread a face—perhaps a name is but a name, and stands for nothing—perhaps—Oh, sir, is it wrong to speak only in riddles? What have we said? What has led us to so strange a conversation in so short a time? Come, let us talk of the voyage, the sea, the all-pervading night. The night conceals so much, being merciful, but when the day comes all this mercy and mystery will go—these ocean whispers, this unutterable darkness, the stars, the moon, even the scent of the salt will be understood. We shall say ’tis healthful, invigorating, and no more; but to-night it is the subtle odor of some sea-forest in a world below, or of flowers in a coral glade. To-morrow the ship will be of wood and iron, whereas to-night—who comprehends this long, slow-moving shadow and those silver, moonlit wings above that bear it forward to some far haven of dreams? To-night we are spellbound; in the morning, if the wind still sleeps, we shall call the spell a calm.” She paused, and, leaning back against the bulwark, still looked up into the mist of shrouds. The moonlight, ensilvering each listless sail, fell full upon her face, giving the unshed tears an Orient lustre, and the cheeks a pallor of unreality. Under the edge of her hood the moonbeams strove to make their way, but could not, and so the gentle but less timid breeze brought down a strand of her hair to turn it paler and more ethereal, till it, too, was no more than a moon-spun thread. Her little hands were clasped together and her lips just parted, as though she were about to answer some voice that she alone could hear.
“You are a spirit,” said Vytal.
And then—then she laughed, and the laugh, although fraught with sadness, transformed her instantly. She became a child with it, a sweet, lovable, beautiful child—all reality, innocence, and health. The laughter in her lips converted these fastnesses of expression to its playground, and, romping, chased away all visionary looks. Her cheeks, dimpling, lost their pallor in a blush. One hand smoothed back the straying lock, the other drew her hood yet lower, while her hazel eyes looking up from under it seemed to possess the magic brown of a russet-bedded brook with sunlight playing beneath its surface—and the sunlight was this wonderful transforming laughter.
“You are a child,” he declared, with more of passion in his voice and less of silent wonder. The tone startled her; the grave look came back into her face, and she stepped from the moonlight into the shadow of a sail.