A REVELATION
The lapse into unconsciousness was but momentary――it was like the shock
produced by a crash of thunder attended with a blinding blaze of the
electric fluid――that stuns for an instant.
Winefred recovered rapidly, and staggered to her feet.
'He is safe,' said Jane Marley.
The girl waved her mother back, and started for the path that conducted
to the summit.
But she had not mounted half way before her powers failed her.
The strain on her nerves had been too great, the horror of being
responsible for the life or death of the young man had so shaken her
that limbs and breath failed, and she sank on a bank of red earth near
where a spring oozed forth and trickled to the beach.
Then she covered her face with her hands and panted. The drops ran off
her brow, the tears from her eyes. What if he had missed the swaying
pole and had fallen, and been now lying at the bottom a mass of broken
bone! Would not the guilt of having driven him to his death lie on her?
The coroner's jury might not find her guilty, but her own conscience
would condemn her. She had asked him to go after the choughs, had
taunted him till he could do no other than keep his promise; when he
had provided companions and rope, he could not retreat, even when
she begged him at the last moment to desist. And now, like a dash of
poisonous exhalation, rose the thought that he had been robbed by her
mother. In the supreme moment of alarm, the mother had let slip the
truth.
She could not think out all that suggested itself to her mind, could
not resolve what to do.
One only desire filled her mind: 'That I were dead! Oh, that I were
dead!'
[Illustration: IN A MOMENT SHE WAS IN HIS ARMS, AND THE CAGE AND THE
BIRDS HAD FALLEN.]
Then she thrilled through every nerve, as she heard a voice say: 'Here
they are.'
Before her stood Jack with a little wicker-work cage in his hand, and
in it two choughs.
She saw them not, nor the cage, only Jack. She sprang to her feet with
a cry, and in a moment was in his arms, and the cage and birds had
fallen.
Not a word was spoken.
Jack held the girl to his heart and felt how she shivered as with an
ague, that she could not utter a word, could only sob as though her
heart were broken.
In a German tale a monk who doubted about immortality listened to the
song of a bird, entranced, and when roused found that a hundred years
had passed as a watch in the night.
It was the reverse with Winefred. As her heart broke forth into
song――the new strange song of love――it was as though that one moment
were expanded into a hundred days.
With a flash that filled her at once with ecstasy and with awe came
the revelation that she loved Jack. All her roughness and rudeness
towards him had been due to misconception of the state of her own
feelings. Throughout she had loved him, but had not known it, and had
resisted; misunderstanding the movements of her heart had given to them
a perverse bias.
'So,' said he, 'we have found each other at last.'
'Oh, God forgive me! God in his pity pardon me!' she sobbed. 'Oh, the
anguish that I have endured! Jack, if you had perished, been dashed to
pieces, I would have cast myself over as well.'
His breast swelled. He looked around. The vapours of morning had
drifted away. Whither they were gone he knew not――only that gone they
were. The sun shone upon Winefred and himself from out of a blue
morning sky full of promise. And she was happy resting in his arms, too
humbled to lift up her head, quivering in every limb, fluttering in
every nerve.
The conflict of emotions was almost unendurable. After a while she drew
herself back, and with hands extended, and with tear-stained cheeks,
she said: 'Jack, can you ever forgive me?'
He caught her to him again.
When one has endured a spasm of exquisite pain but a single thing is
possible, to rest, breathe, and recover force――though that may be
merely to undergo another throe.
So she rested in his arms, panting, rallying, and yet with the prospect
before her of renewed pain.
'Jack,' she sobbed, 'I have spoken cruel words to you.'
He kissed her.
'And I might have caused your death.'
'I forget everything now. I would do more. I would do anything for you.'
'I could die now you have forgiven me,' said she, disengaging herself
and sinking on a bank of turf.
'No, Winefred,' he said, 'this is not a moment in which to speak of
death, but rather of life――ay, and of two lives flowing into one.'
She shook her head.
'I can never forgive myself.'
'See, Winefred, I have had bitter thoughts of you, but they have all
passed away like the morning mist. We were both entangled in a fog of
misunderstandings. Now the sun is out and shines on both our heads and
down into both our hearts, and all within as without is light.'
But again she expressed dissent. It was not light in her heart. In its
depths lay the hateful thought of her mother's wrong-doing.
'Do not concern yourself about the matter of the choughs,' said he,
misunderstanding her, 'I went over the cliff of my own accord. I was
glad of the excuse. Ever since I have broken with the smugglers I have
had trouble with the young fellows of Beer. They have sneered at me as
wanting in pluck. They could not account otherwise for my withdrawal.
So I was glad to catch at a chance of showing that I still had a cool
head and stout heart. It was nothing in itself, but it served my
purpose. Winefred, it was you yourself who advised me to have done
with smuggling. I have kept my word to you, but it has involved me
in unpleasantness, and I am thankful to you for having given me the
occasion for doing something which may possibly help to set me right in
public opinion at Beer.'
She shuddered.
'Oh, God have mercy on me!' she said, with a new outburst of
compunction. 'I did it in malice, because I thought that I hated you.'
'Winefred, but for this we should not have met as we meet now. I should
have gone on thinking that you hated me.'
'And I――I quite believed that I did hate you.'
'Now you know better. But for these choughs you would have been
believing the same now and evermore.'
Then, after a long pause, he said, 'We have each something to forgive
and much to unlearn. I, at one time, really did suppose that your
mother had stolen my inheritance.'
She uttered a cry and shrank from him.
'But only for a short while,' he continued. 'After that meeting with
you I was convinced that neither she nor you had injured me in that
way. Your looks, your words, assured me of your entire innocence.
Some folk have gone so far as to assert that your mother has employed
my father's savings to send you to Bath, but I have spoken strongly
against that.'
He was startled by the expression of her face, by the mute agony and
despair that were in it.
She looked at him with blank eyes, and every particle of colour had
deserted her face, even her lips. As he put out his hand to take hers,
she drew back with a shiver.
'Winefred! what is the matter? I tell you that I believe that no more.
Why are you frightened? Why do you look at me thus?'
'Do not ask me,' she answered. 'I cannot explain.' She laid her face in
her hands.
'I will ask no questions at all,' he said. 'I am content now that I
have your love. I forget all the past, with its misunderstandings. Be
but yourself again. I love you with all my heart――let that be our one
thought now.'
She wrung her hands despairingly, looking at him with a death-like
face. Her lips moved, but no words came over them.
'I love you――I love you,' she said, after a long and painful pause.
'But that is all. In the bright day comes darkness. We are two wretched
creatures. We must not love each other, for we can never, never belong
to each other.'
'But why not?' he asked.
'You have promised me not to inquire.'
He looked steadily into her face, and a suspicion stole serpent-like
into his mind. His breath came slow and laboured. A veil formed before
his eyes. Was that it――that which he feared?
Then, in a subdued voice, he said, 'Winefred, we cannot remain longer
here, and I must know the meaning of this.'
'We cannot remain, and you will not ask.'
'I hear steps. Some one is coming. We must meet again.'
'Better for both if we part here, and for ever.'