Part 3 (1/2)

”Calling you?” he questioned.

”Well, I mean it fascinates me, if you understand. I want to get close to it, to paddle in it. It is so beautiful. It looks so cool and friendly. Beryl says she cannot bear the sea; that it is not friendly a bit; that it is cruel and noisy, and treacherous.”

”Ah! she has lived near the sea most of her life.”

”And yet you can scarcely see it from the Hall.”

”But it can be heard on stormy nights, and when a westerly gale is raging its voice is terrible.”

”You have lived here all your life?” and her lips parted in the most innocent smile.

”Here, and in a neighbouring parish,” he answered, frankly.

”And do you like the sea?”

”Sometimes. On an evening like this, for instance, I could sit for hours looking at it, and listening to the low murmur of the waves. But in the winter I rarely come out on the cliffs.”

”I have never seen the sea real mad,” she said, reflectively; ”but I expect I shall if I stay here long enough.”

”Do you expect to stay long?” he questioned. If she asked questions he did not see why he might not.

”Well, I guess I shall stay in England a good many months anyhow,” she answered slowly, and with an unmistakable accent; and she turned away her eyes, and a faint wave of colour tinged her pale cheeks.

He would have liked to have asked her a good many other questions, but he felt he had gone far enough.

”I fear I shall have to go back now,” she said at length, without looking at him, ”or they'll all be wondering what has become of me.”

”You could not easily get lost in a place like this,” he said, with a laugh.

”No, n.o.body would kidnap me,” she said, arching her eyebrows.

”No, I don't think so,” he answered in a tone that was half-mirthful, half-serious.

She raised her eyes to his for a moment in a keen searching glance, then, with a hasty ”Good evening,” turned and walked away in the direction she had come.

He stood and watched her until she had pa.s.sed over the brow of the hill in the direction of Trewinion Hall. Then he slowly resumed his journey towards St. Gaved.

That night he awoke from a dream with a feeling of horror tearing at his heart. He dreamed that his great scheme had proved a failure, and that Felix Muller stood over him demanding the immediate fulfilment of the contract.

So vivid had been the dream that, for the moment, he seemed powerless to shake off the impression. He sat up in bed, and stared round him, while a cold perspiration broke out in beads upon his brow.

For the first time he realised, in any clear and vivid sense, the nature of the compact he had entered into. The possibilities of failure had seemed so infinitely remote that he had never seriously tried to realise what failure would mean.

Now that awful contingency forced itself upon his heart and imagination in a way that seemed almost to paralyse him. It was as though some invisible but powerful hand had pushed him to the edge of a dark and awful precipice, and compelled him to look over. His knees shook under him, his head seemed to reel, he struggled to get back to safer ground.

The feeling of horror pa.s.sed away after a few minutes, and he lay down again.

”Of course, I shall not fail,” he said to himself. ”The contingency is so remote that I need not give the matter a second thought.”