"A BLESSED CHANCE."
When Lawrence heard that voice his hand suddenly slackened on the
rope and the sail almost swung loose. The boat wavered, then with a
quick firmness his grasp on the tiller and rope strengthened, and the
craft gathered herself and darted forward, the water splashing away
from her sides, the wind humming.
Lawrence did not turn his head, and at first he did not speak. The
sail and the darkness shielded him.
"I thought I heard talking," went on the voice, "but the wind blew
so I couldn't be sure. I hope no one knows about our lark. It would
spoil the fun; besides, they'd worry."
Silence again. The boat gained in speed as it left the shelter of the
land.
Was it a moment or was it a half-hour that passed before the voice
said, sharply:
"Leander!"
"It's not Leander," was the just audible answer.
To this there was no response for so long a time that Lawrence almost
began to think that his sense of hearing had played him false. Had
he really heard anything? He made a great effort to become calmer.
He had pulled the sail taut and fastened it. He now stood perfectly
still, with the tiller in his hand. The boat was heeling over as she
went on, the water hissing past her. He took note that the sky seemed
to be clearing; the stars were brighter.
He remembered that Leander and Prudence used to go out in the _Vireo_
sometimes by themselves, for Prudence, as Carolyn often said, was
better than most skippers, and Lee made a good second officer.
After awhile Lawrence knew that Prudence had left the cabin; he knew
that she was standing close to him, steadying herself by the mast.
"Sit down," he said, with authority.
She obeyed, placing herself in the stern-seat near where he stood. In
a moment he sat down beside her. He wondered if he should think to
hold the tiller, his surprise was so great.
"Did you know I was here?" she asked.
"No. I felt a sudden wish to take a sail. I came down here; I met
Leander at the wharf; I wouldn't let him go."
"You wanted to be alone?"
"Yes," he said, with hesitation.
A silence, and then Prudence exclaimed, "Oh, how strange this is!"
"Yes."
Lawrence spoke mechanically. Presently he asked, "Shall I put the
boat about?"
"I think you might better."
"Yes; of course we'll go back directly."
Another silence. Lawrence made no movement to turn. Then he coldly
suggested that, now they were out, they might as well run across the
bay. To this there was no reply.
After awhile Prudence asked softly, leaning near, that she might be
heard, "I hope you're not too unhappy because you happen to be with
me; are you?"
"No."
"You know I'm not to blame. You know I didn't plan it."
"I know that."
The boat went on. Neither of the two spoke for a long time. Then
Lawrence put a question. "Are you miserable?"
"No."
"And yet I'm not Lord Maxwell."
"Oh, please don't!"
"Prudence, give me your hand."
The girl's hand, cold as an icicle, was reached towards him, and was
instantly crushed in his. He must still hold the tiller with his
other hand, must still think of his boat.
"Prudence--" he hesitated.
He heard her whisper, "Rodney--"
Then he cried, "Why did you do such a damnable thing? Why? Why? We
might have been two years man and wife."
At first she made no reply. He felt her shiver, then draw nearer to
him.
The wind drove a blast towards them, and then all at once grew more
gentle.
"I was mad to do it," she said, "and now I am punished,--punished
cruelly,--and I shall suffer all my life. But you're going to be
happy. I'm glad of that."
There were pauses between her sentences.
"Shall you be glad to have me happy with some one else?"
His voice had fallen to the cadence she remembered so well.
"Anything,--anything,--so that you are happy."
She spoke passionately, and she sobbed heavily after her words.
Lawrence drew himself away, as if by command of something outside of
himself. Then quickly he came nearer. He put his free arm about her
and kissed her; he kissed her again and again, her lips responding to
his caress, touching his own as they had done--ah, how long ago was
it? It seemed as if time had been annihilated and he was back to that
day when she had said she loved him. And how he had loved her!--as
the cataract rushes over the cliff; the old trite comparison was the
true one. At the meeting of their lips the torrent rushed over his
soul again. What did anything matter, so that he had her again? Her
arms were about his neck, her face was against his. He heard her say,
"Dearest," in the same tone in which she had first spoken it to him,
more than two years ago,--the tone he had tried to forget.
"We are not to blame," she said. "We didn't try to meet. It was a
blessed chance,--oh, a blessed chance! And now we have met, how can
we part?"
She hung upon him. She seemed to have flung from her all the
self-control which she knew so well how to maintain.
It was as if her love had mastered all else; Lawrence felt it to be
thus. It was love for him, he felt, that was stronger than everything
besides. This conviction went to his head; it made him long to
forget the present, that was not hers, in that past which had been
hers.
And how strange, how unaccountable, that he should have found her in
the boat. Was it a blessed chance?
Another and a wilder rush of wind; a black cloud just overhead sent
down a dash of wind, which ceased as suddenly as it began.
It seemed to Lawrence that he had great presence of mind because he
continued to keep control of the rudder. He tried to think as well as
to feel, but his quick-coursing blood prevented thought.
How could he ever have believed for one moment that he loved Carolyn?
Why, his whole heart belonged to this woman who was clinging to him
as if it would be death to her to be put away.
He wished to speak, to say something that he ought to say, but his
voice stopped in his throat.
The _Vireo_ flashed by a dark body that had a light shining at its
bows,--some ship swinging at anchor. Vaguely Lawrence heard a man on
the deck above him shout out something, he could not distinguish what.
He and Prudence were flying through space--together. Then, still
vaguely, and with a threatening horror, he thought of that picture of
Francesca and her lover flying always through trackless air, never
stopping, gulfs below them, infinitude above them. They had supped
full of love, and now--
"Dearest!"
It was the voice of Prudence saying that word again. Lawrence wished
to rouse himself to some sense of duty; but duty appeared to be
something indefinite and very far away; and then perhaps he had been
cherishing some old-fashioned, mistaken sense of what was duty. If
that was so--
"Are you going to turn towards the shore?"
Prudence asked the question as if she were speaking of a thing
impossible to do. She was looking at him with eyes whose beauty and
deep, seductive power he could perceive through the dusk.
He held her still closer.
"Do you tell me to turn?" he murmured.
He knew that she hesitated; he felt a slight shudder go through her
frame. Her very hesitation spurred him.
"If you tell me to turn," he said, in the same half-tone, close to
her cheek, "I shall obey. But you will not tell me."
Silence. The spray from the waves sprinkled over the two. Far ahead,
but growing brighter, a line of lights showed where the north shore
curved.
Prudence pressed still nearer to him.
"God forgive me!" she cried; "but I can't ask you to go back."
"And if we go on now, we shall not part again?" He spoke rapidly;
there was a note of desperation in his words which she perceived.
"Go on," she said; "we will never part again."
She kissed his lips lightly, then put her head on his breast.
"God forgive us! God forgive us!" Lawrence also cried; and he added,
as he held his burden tightly, "I can't let you go. No, not if heaven
and hell tried to part us. Now you are mine."
But not all the intoxication of that moment could prevent the picture
of Carolyn's face from coming suddenly and clearly before Lawrence as
he spoke. That once it came, then vanished.
It was several moments before Prudence lifted her head and looked
about her.
The north shore had approached still nearer,--so near that her strong
eyes could see bonfires on the beach, and children feeding the
flames, and cottages behind, lighted up by the flickering brilliance.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I don't know. Wherever you say. Somewhere where there's a clergyman
who will marry us?"
"Yes. And we must make some definite plan."
"You make the plan."
"I will try. As for me, I'd like to go on like this for days, driven
by the warm wind between ocean and sky, and with no one but you,--no
one but you." She repeated the words in a tone just loud enough for
him to hear. "You love me, then?"
"Love you? Do I not prove it?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," she cried, in that intense tone which seems the voice
of passion itself; "and as for me--oh, I will also prove to you how
happy you make me."
A short time after Lawrence rose; he trimmed the sail. He looked
at his watch; it was ten o'clock. The breeze was abating, and he
succeeded in keeping the match-flame ablaze as he examined the dial.
"If the wind holds on at all," he said, "we can make Salem, or some
of those towns."
"Why not Boston?" asked Prudence, who deftly helped her companion
with the sail, or steered while he worked.
He glanced towards her. They had lighted a lantern and fastened it
in the bows. Its rays fell on the girl's face. It was radiantly,
excitedly pale; the soft luminousness of it might make a man forget
many things.
"And the _Scythia_ sails to-morrow," she said.
She spoke after thought; she feared her words would hurt, but she had
already roughly arranged her plan.
It was the _Scythia_ in which Lawrence had engaged passage for
himself and wife.
Prudence knew that he grew white, that he shut his lips tightly; but
she also felt sure that the plan would soon present itself to him as
the most feasible. Lawrence would go abroad with his wife; only his
wife would not be Carolyn Ffolliott, but Prudence Ffolliott.
In that case all arrangements were already perfected. How could she
have done better if she had known Rodney was coming down to the boat
that night? She was striving with all her powers to think clearly and
to the point.
She turned towards her companion and looked at him pleadingly,
gently, and yet with power. Her face showed love, utter love; and it
was that love which he could not resist.
"Let it be the _Scythia_," he said, shortly. Then, with tender
violence, "Prudence, do you guess how I must love you? Do you guess
what you must be to me? Good heavens! I don't know myself!"
Before the girl could reply, in a lull of the decreasing wind, some
indefinite, curious sound was heard in the bit of a cabin.
Lawrence started nervously. "What can that be?" he asked, sharply.
"Rodney," she said, persuasively, "don't let's be superstitious. That
must be Devil."
"That crow? Is he on board?"
"Yes; Leander brought him, for fun, he said; he wanted to find out if
Devil had any sea-legs. The crow perched on the back of a chair and
seemed to go to sleep. I suppose he has wakened now."
"I don't know what we shall do with him."
"Let him loose before we leave the boat."
"But Aunt Letitia--they are attached to him."
"He will find his way home. Don't you know Lee has been drilling
him,--taking him away and letting him go back, and tying a note to
his leg? You need not fear; Devil knows enough."
At this moment the crow appeared in the narrow doorway, a ray of
light striking him and bringing out his form in a curious, uncanny
way. He made a harsh noise, lifting one foot as he did so, and
looking first at Lawrence and then at Prudence.
The girl held out her hand and exclaimed:
"Oh, you dear Devil, what are you thinking when you look like that?"
Her light tone relieved the tension which both had been feeling. The
crow hopped forward towards Prudence's hand.
"What if we tie a note to him?" she asked. "Don't you think we might
do that?"
Before Lawrence could reply, there was a loud shout close to them and
above them--a sound of men swearing--a blow on the _Vireo_--a rush of
black waters--another sound as of the coming together of heaven and
earth--in the midst of it all a strange cry from the crow.
Lawrence had caught Prudence in his arms.
Presently he came to his senses and knew clearly that he was in the
water, that Prudence was floating easily on his arm, that the _Vireo_
had been run into and perhaps destroyed.
"Prudence," he said, quickly, "I'm sure they'll pick us up."
"Yes," she answered, quite calmly, "I'm sure they will."
It was a coastwise steamer, and almost immediately they saw her black
bulk a few rods away; and then a light fell on the water from a boat
near, and a man shouted. Lawrence raised his own voice in reply.
[Illustration: "'I BORE YOU SO,' SHE SAID."]