After Weir had been carried up-stairs, and he had ascertained that she
was again conscious, Dartmouth went to his own room, knowing he could
not see her again that night. He did not go to bed; there was
no possibility of sleep for hours, and he preferred the slight
distraction of pacing up and down the room. After a time he paused
in front of the fireplace, and mechanically straightened one of the
andirons with his foot. What had affected Weir so strangely? Had the
whole thing burst suddenly upon her? He had hardly told her enough for
that; but what else could it be? Poor child! And poor Sir Iltyd! How
should he explain to him? What story could he concoct to satisfy him?
It would be absurd to attempt the truth; no human being but himself
and Weir could comprehend it; Sir Iltyd would only think them both
mad. He unconsciously drew in a long breath, expelling the air again
with some violence, like a man whose chest is oppressed. And how his
head ached! If he could only get a few hours sleep without that cursed
laudanum. Hark! what was that? A storm was coming up. It almost shook
the castle, solid and of stone as it was. But he was glad. A storm was
more in tune with his mood than calm. He would go out into the gallery
and watch it.
He left his room and went to the gallery to which he had gone to watch
a storm a little over a week ago. A week? It seemed so remote that for
the moment he could not recall the events of that last visit; his
head ached so that everything but physical suffering was temporarily
insignificant. There was no moon to-night. The sky was covered with
black, scurrying clouds, and he could only hear the angry, boiling
waters, not see them. He felt suffocated. He had felt so all the
evening. Besides the pain in his head there was a pressure on his
brain; he must have air; and he pulled open one of the windows and
stood within it. The wind beat about his head, the sea-gulls screamed
in his ears, and the roar of the sea was deafening; but it exhilarated
him and eased his head for the moment. What a poem it would make, that
black, storm-swept sky, those mighty, thundering waters, that granite,
wind-torn coast! How he could have immortalized it once! And he had
it in him to immortalize it now, only that mechanical defect in his
brain, no--that cruel iron hand, would not let him tell the world that
he was greater than any to whom its people bent their knees. Ah, there
it was at last! It had reawakened, and it was battling and struggling
for speech as before. Perhaps this time it would succeed! It was
strong enough to conquer in the end, and why should not the end have
come? Surely the fire in his brain must have melted that iron hand.
Surely, far away, _they_ were singing again. Where were they? Within
his brain?--or battling with the storm to reach him? What were those
wraith-like things--those tiny forms dancing weirdly on the roaring
waters? Ah, he knew. They were the elfins of his brain that had
tormented him with their music and fled at his approach. They
had flown from their little cells, and were holding court on the
storm-waves like fairies on the green. It was like them to love the
danger and the tumult and the night. It was like them to shout and
bound with the intoxication of the hour, to scream with the gale, and
to kiss with frantic rapture the waves that threatened them. Each was
a Thought mightier than any known to living man, and in the bosom of
maddened nature it had found its element. And they had not deserted
him--they had fled but for the hour--they had turned suddenly and were
holding out their arms to him. Ah! he would meet them half-way--
A pair of arms, strong with terror, were suddenly thrown about him,
and he was dragged to the other side of the gallery.
"Harold!" cried Weir; "what is the matter with you? Are you mad?"
"I believe I am," he cried. "Come to the light. I have something to
tell you."
He caught her by the wrists and pulled her down the gallery until they
were under the lantern which burned in one of the windows on nights
like this as a warning to mariners. She gave a faint scream of terror,
and struggled to release herself.
"You look so strange," she cried. "Let me go."
"Not any more strange than you do," he said, rapidly. "You, too, have
changed since that night in here, when the truth was told to both of
us. You did not understand then, nor did I; but I know all now, and I
will tell you."
And then, in a torrent of almost unintelligible words, he poured
forth the tale of his discovery: what had come to him in the study at
Crumford Hall, the locket he had found, the letters he had read, the
episode of his past he had lived over, the poem which had swept him
up among the gods in its reading--all the sequence of facts whose
constant reiteration during every unguarded moment had mechanically
forced themselves into lasting coherence. She listened with head bent
forward, and eyes through which terror, horror, despair, chased each
other, then returned and fought together. "It is all true," he cried,
in conclusion. "It is all true. Why don't you speak? Cannot you
understand?"
She wrenched her hands from his grasp and flung her arms above her
head. "Yes," she cried, "I understand. I am a woman for whose sin Time
has no mercy; you are a madman, and I am alone!"
"What are you saying?" he demanded, thickly. "You are alone? There is
no hope, then?"
"No, there is no hope," she said, "nor has the worst--" She sprang
suddenly forward and caught him about the neck. "Oh, Harold!" she
cried, "you are not mad. It cannot be! I cannot think of the sin, or
care; I only know that I love you! love you! love you! and that if we
can be together always the past can go; even--Oh, Harold, speak to me;
don't look at me in that way!"
But his arms hung inertly at his sides, and he looked down into her
agonized face with a smile. "No hope!" he whispered.
The poor girl dropped in a heap to the floor, as if the life had
suddenly gone out of her. Harold gave a little laugh. "No hope!" he
said.
She sprang to her feet and flew down the gallery. But he stood where
she had left him. She reached the open window, then turned and for
a moment faced him again. "No," she cried, "no hope, and no rest or
peace;" and then the storm and the night closed over her.
He moved to the window after a moment, and leaning out, called her
name. There was no answer but the shrieking of the storm. The black
waters had greedily embraced her, and in their depths she would find
rest at last. How would she look down there, in some quiet cave,
with the sea-weed floating over her white gown, and the pearls in her
beautiful hair? How exquisite a thing she would be! The very monsters
of the deep would hold their breath as they passed, and leave her
unmolested. And the eye of mortal man would never gaze upon her again.
There was divinest ecstacy in the thought! Ah! how lovely she was!
What a face--what a form!
He staggered back from the window and gave a loud laugh. At last it
had been vanquished and broken--that iron hand. He had heard it snap
that moment within his brain. And it was pouring upward, that river of
song. The elfins had come back, and were quiring like the immortals.
She would hear them down there, in her cold, nameless grave, with the
ceaseless requiem of the waters above her, and smile and rejoice
that death had come to her to give him speech. His brain was the very
cathedral of heaven, and there was music in every part of it. The
glad shout was ringing throughout nave and transept like the glorious
greeting of Christmas morning. "Her face! Her form!" No, no; not
that again. They were no part of the burning flood of song which was
writhing and surging in his brain. They were not the words which would
tell the world--Ah! what was it? "Her face! Her form!--"
He groped his way to and fro like a blind man seeking some object to
guide him. "Her eyes! Her hair!" No, no. Oh, what was this? Why was he
falling--falling?--What was that terror-stricken cry? that wild, white
face of an old man above him? Where had this water come from that was
boiling and thundering in his ears? What was that tossed aloft by the
wave beyond? If he could but reach her!--She had gone! Cruel Night had
caught her in its black arms and was laughing at his efforts to reach
her. That mocking, hideous laughter! how it shrieked above the storm,
its dissonance as eternal as his fate! There she was again!--Sionèd!
No, she had gone, and he was beating with impotent fury those
devouring--But who was this bending over him?--the Night Queen, with
the stars in her hair? And what was she pressing into his arms? At
last! Sionèd! Sionèd!