'That shriek was a call to you,' she cried, and then burst into a
passion of tears. 'It _cannot_ be,' she said. 'It cannot and shall
not be; God is too good to suffer it,' Then she fixed her eyes upon
me, and sobbed: 'Ah, it is _true_! I feel it is all true! Yes, they
are calling you, and that is why my soul answered the call. Ah, when
I saw you just now lift your head from my breast with a face grey and
wizened as an old man's--when I saw you look at me, I knew that
something dreadful had happened. Oh, I knew, I knew! but I thought it
had happened to _me_. The love and pity in your eyes when you opened
them upon me made me think it was my trouble, and not yours, that
disturbed you. And now I know it is yours, and you are going to die!
They are calling you. Yes, you are going to let the tide drown you!
Oh, my love my love!' and her grief was so acute that I knew not at
first whether in this I had done well after all.
'Winifred,' I said, 'you must bear this. I have always been ready to
take death when it should come. I have at least had one blessed time
with Winifred on the sands--Winifred the beloved and beautiful
girl--one night, as the crown to the happy days that have been mine
with Winifred the beloved and beautiful child. And that night, as we
were walking by the sea, it seemed to me that such happiness as was
ours can come but once--that never again could there be a night equal
to that.'
Smiles broke through her tears as she listened to me. I had struck
the right chord.
'And _I_ thought so too,' she said. 'It was indeed a night of bliss.
Indeed, indeed God has been good to us, Henry,' and she fell into my
arms again.
'And now, Winnie,' I said, 'we must kiss and part--part for ever.'
Yes, I had struck the right chord. As she lay in my arms I felt her
soft bosom moving with a little hysterical laugh of derision when I
said we must part. And then she rose and sat beside me upon the
boulder, looking calm and fearless at the tide as it got nearer and
nearer to Needle Point.
'Yes, dear,' I said, looking in the same direction, 'you must be
going; see how the waves are surrounding the Point. You must run,
Winnie--you must run, and leave me.'
'Yes,' said she, still gazing across to the Point, 'as you say, I
must run, but not yet, dear; plenty of time yet,' and she smiled to
herself as she used to do in the old days, when as a child she had
made up her mind to do something.
Then without another word she took her shawl from her shoulders, and
pulled it out to see its length. And soon I felt her fingers stealing
my penknife from my waistcoat-pocket, and saw her deftly cut up the
shawl, strip after strip, and weave it and knot it into a rope, and
tie the rope around her waist, and then she stooped to tie it around
me.
It was when I felt her warm breath about my neck as she stooped over
me to tie that rope, that love was really revealed to me; it was
then, and not till then, that all my previous love for Winifred
seemed as the flicker of a rushlight to Sálamán's cloak of fire; and
a feeling of bliss unutterable came upon me, and the night air seemed
full of music, and the sky above seemed opening, as she whispered,
'Henry, Henry, Henry, in a few minutes you will be mine.' But the
very confidence with which she spoke these simple words startled me
as from a dream. 'Suppose,' I thought, 'suppose my last drop of bliss
with Winnie were being tasted now!' In a moment I felt like a coward.
But then there came a loud crash and a thunder from behind the
landslip.
'The settlement!' I cried. 'The coming in of the tide has made the
landslip settle!'
When I sat with closed eyes examining my fiery photograph, I had
calculated the 'settlement' at the return of the tide as being among
the chances of escape. But feeling myself to be engaged in a duel
with Circumstance (more cruel than the fiends), I believed that the
settlement would come too late for us, or even if it did not come too
late, it might not hide away the spectacle. The settlement had come;
what had it done for us? This I must know at once.
'Untie the rope,' I said; 'quick, untie the rope, there is a
settlement of the landslip.'
'But what has the settlement to do with us?' said Winnie.
'It _has_ to do with us, dear; untie the rope. It has much to do with
us, Winnie,' I said; for now the determination to save her life came
on me stronger than ever.
When the rope was untied, I said, 'Wait till I call,' and I ran round
the corner of the _débris_. The great upright wall of earth and
sward, from which had stared the body of Wynne, had fallen, hiding
him and his crime together!
To return round the corner of the landslip and call Winifred was the
work of an instant, and, quick as she was in answering my call, by
the time she had reached me I had thrown off my coat and boots.
'Now for a run and a tussle with the waves, Winnie,' I said.
'Then we are not going to die?'
'We are going to live. Run; in six more returns of a wave like that
there will he four feet of water at the Point.'
'Come along, Snap,' said Winifred, and she flew along the sands
without another word.
Ah, she could run!--faster than I could, with my bruised heel! She
was there first.
'Leap in, Winnie,' I cried, 'and struggle towards the Point; it will
save time. I shall he with you in a second.'
Winifred plunged into the tide (Snap following with a bark), and
fought her way so bravely that my fear now was lest she should be out
of her depth before I could reach her, and then, clad as she was, she
would certainly drown. But never tor a moment did her good sense
leave her. When she was nearly waist-high she stopped and turned
round, gazing at me as I tore through the shallow water--gazing with
a wistful, curious look that her face would have worn had we been
playing.
To get round the Point and pull Winifred round was no slight task,
for the water was nearly up to my breast, and a woman's clothing
seems designed for drowning her. Any other woman than Winifred
_would_ have been drowned, and would have drowned me with her. But in
straits of this kind the only safety lies in courage.
'What a night's adventures!' said Winifred, after we had turned the
Point, and were walking through the shallow water towards the
gangway.
We hurried towards the cottage as fast as our wet clothes would
permit. On reaching it we found the door unlocked, and entered.
'Father has again gone to bed,' said Winifred, 'and left no candle
burning for me.'
And without seeing her face, I knew by the tremor of the hand I
clasped that she was listening with shame for the drunken snore that
she would never hear again.