In the morning a storm, driving out of the east, enveloped the coast
in a frigid, lashing rain. The wind mounted steadily through the
middle of the day with an increasing pitch accompanied by the basso of
the racing seas. The bay grew opaque and seamed with white scars.
After the meridian the rain ceased, but the wind maintained its
volume, clamoring beneath a leaden pall.
John Woolfolk, in dripping yellow oilskins, occasionally circled the
deck of his ketch. Halvard had everything in a perfection of order.
When the rain stopped, the sailor dropped into the tender and with a
boat sponge bailed vigorously. Soon after, Woolfolk stepped out upon
the beach. He was without any plan but the determination to put aside
whatever obstacles held Millie from him. This rapidly crystallized
into the resolve to take her with him before another day ended. His
feeling for her, increasing to a passionate need, had destroyed the
suspension, the deliberate calm of his life, as the storm had
dissipated the sunny peace of the coast.
He paused before the ruined façade, weighing her statement that it
would have been better if he had not returned; and he wondered how
that would affect her willingness, her ability, to see him today. He
added the word "ability" instinctively and without explanation. And he
decided that, in order to have any satisfactory speech with her, he
must come upon her alone, away from the house. Then he could force her
to hear to the finish what he wanted to say; in the open they might
escape from the inexplicable inhibition that lay upon her expression
of feeling, of desire. It would be necessary, at the same time, to
avoid the notice of anyone who would warn her of his presence. This
precluded his waiting at the familiar place on the rotting wharf.
Three marble steps, awry and moldy, descended to the lawn from a
French window in the side of the desolate mansion. They were
screened by a tangle of rose-mallow, and there John Woolfolk seated
himself--waiting.
The wind shrilled about the corner of the house; there was a mournful
clatter of shingles from above and the frenzied lashing of boughs. The
noise was so great that he failed to hear the slightest indication of
the approach of Nicholas until that individual passed directly before
him. Nicholas stopped at the inner fringe of the beach and, from a
point where he could not be seen from the ketch, stood gazing out at
the _Gar_ pounding on her long anchor chains. The man remained for an
oppressively extended period; Woolfolk could see his heavy, drooping
shoulders and sunken head; and then the other moved to the left,
crossing the rough open behind the oleanders. Woolfolk had a momentary
glimpse of a huge nose and rapidly moving lips above an impotent
chin.
Nicholas, he realized, remained a complete enigma to him; beyond the
conviction that the man was, in some minor way, leaden-witted, he knew
nothing.
A brief, watery ray of sunlight fell through a rift in the flying
clouds and stained the tossing foliage pale gold; it was followed by a
sudden drift of rain, then once more the naked wind. Woolfolk was fast
determining to go up to the house and insist upon Millie's hearing
him, when unexpectedly she appeared in a somber, fluttering cloak,
with her head uncovered and hair blown back from her pale brow. He
waited until she had passed him, and then rose, softly calling her
name.
She stopped and turned, with a hand pressed to her heart. "I was
afraid you'd gone out," she told him. "The sea is like a pack of
wolves." Her voice was a low complexity of relief and fear.
"Not alone," he replied; "not without you."
"Madness," she murmured, gathering her wavering cloak about her
breast. She swayed, graceful as a reed in the wind, charged with
potency. He made an involuntary gesture toward her with his arms; but
in a sudden accession of fear she eluded him.
"We must talk," he told her. "There is a great deal that needs
explaining, that--I think--I have a right to know, the right of your
dependence on something to save you from yourself. There is another
right, but only you can give that----"
"Indeed," she interrupted tensely, "you mustn't stand here talking to
me."
"I shall allow nothing to interrupt us," he returned decidedly. "I
have been long enough in the dark."
"But you don't understand what you will, perhaps, bring on yourself--on
me."
"I'm forced to ignore even that last."