Suddenly the old serenity and peace came back to the upturned face. The smile he asked for shone in her sweet eyes.
“Good-bye, my Randolph – my husband – good-bye. Yes, I do bid you do your duty. May God bless and keep you always.”
For a moment they stood together, heart pressed to heart, their lips meeting in one long, lingering kiss; for one moment a strange shadow as of farewell seemed to hang upon them, and they clung together as if no power on earth could separate them.
The next moment he was gone, and Monica, left alone, stretched out her hands in the darkness.
“Oh, my love! my love!”
It was the one irrepressible cry from the depths of her heart; the next moment she repeated dreamily to herself the words that had lately passed her husband’s lips:
“‘Whatever happens, we are in God’s hands. Remember that always.’ Randolph, I will! I will!”
A ringing cheer told her that the boat was off. Nobody had seen the slim figure that had slunk after Randolph down to the beach. No one, in the darkness and general excitement, had seen that same slim figure leap lightly and noiselessly into the boat, and crouch down in the extreme end of the bow.
Conrad Fitzgerald had witnessed the parting between husband and wife; he had heard every word that had passed between them; and now, as he crouched with a tiger-like ferocity in the bottom of the boat, he muttered:
“This time he shall not escape me!”
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.
WIDOWED
The boat launched by the rescuing party vanished in the darkness. Monica stood where her husband had left her in the shelter of the cliff, her pale face turned seawards, her eyes fixed upon the glimmering crests of the great waves, as they came rolling calmly in, in their resistless might and majesty.
Beatrice had twice come back to her, to assure her with eager vehemence that the danger was very slight, that it was lessening every moment as the wind shifted and abated in force – dangerous, indeed, for the poor fellows in the doomed vessel that had struck upon the fatal reef, but not very perilous for the willing and eager and experienced crew that had started off to rescue them. Beatrice urged this many times upon Monica; but the latter stood quite still and spoke not a word; only gazed out to sea with the same strange yearning gaze that was like a mute farewell.
Was it only an hour ago that she had been with her husband at home, telling him of the dim foreboding of coming woe that had haunted her all that day? It seemed to her as if she had all her life been standing beside the dark margin of this tempest-tossed sea, waiting the return of him who made all the happiness of her life – and waiting in vain.
Beatrice looked at her once or twice, but did not speak again. Presently she moved down towards the water’s edge. Surely the boat would be coming back now!
Suddenly there was a glad shout of triumph and joy from the fisher-folk, down by the brink of the sea.
“Here she is!” “Here she comes!” “Steady, there!” “Ease her a bit!” “This way now!” “Be ready, lads!” “Here she comes!” “Now, then, all together!” “After this wave – NOW!”
Cries, shouts, an eager confusion of tongues – the grating of a boat’s keel upon the beach, and then a ringing hearty cheer.
“All safe?”
“All saved – five of them and a lad.” “Just in time only.” “She wouldn’t have floated five minutes longer.” “She was going down like lead.”
What noise and confusion there was – people crowding round, flitting figures passing to and fro in the obscurity, every one talking, all speaking together – such a hubbub as Beatrice had never witnessed before. She stood in glad, impatient expectancy on the outskirts of the little crowd. Why did not Randolph come away from them to Monica? Why did she not hear his voice with the rest? Her heart gave a sudden throb as of terror.
“Where is Lord Trevlyn?”
Her voice, sharpened by the sudden fear that had seized her, was heard through all the eager clamour of those who stood round. A gleam of moonlight, struggling through the clouds, lighted up the group for a moment. The words went round like wildfire: “Where is Lord Trevlyn?” and men looked each other in the face, growing pale with conscious bewilderment. Where, indeed, was Lord Trevlyn? He was certainly not amongst them; yet he had undoubtedly steered the boat to shore. Where was he now? Men talked in loud, rapid tones. Women ran hither and thither, wringing their hands in distressful excitement, hunting for the missing man with futile eagerness. What had happened? Where could he be?
Suddenly a deep silence fell upon all; for in the brightening moonlight they saw that Monica stood amongst them – pale, calm and still, as a spirit from another world.
“Tell me,” she said.
The story was told by one and another. Monica was used to the people and their ways. She gathered without difficulty the substance of the story. The boat had reached, without over-much difficulty or danger, the sinking vessel. She was a small coaling ship, with a crew of seven men and a boy. Two of the former had already been washed away, and the vessel was sinking rapidly. The five survivors were easily rescued; but the lad was entangled in the rigging, and was too much exhausted to free himself and follow. Lord Trevlyn was the first to realise this, and he sprang out of the boat at some peril to himself to the lad’s assistance. Nobody had been able to see in the darkness what had passed, but all agreed that the lad had been handed to those in the boat by a pair of strong arms, and that after an interval of about three minutes – for the boat had swung round, and had to be brought back again, which took a little time – a man had sprung back into the boat, had shouted “All right!” had seized the tiller, and sung out to the crew to “Give way, and put off!” which they had done immediately, glad enough to be clear of the masts of the sinking vessel, which were in dangerous proximity.
No one had been able in the darkness to see the face of the steersman; but all agreed that the voice was “a gentleman’s”; and most mysterious of all was the fact that the boat had been steered to shore with a skill that showed a thorough knowledge of the coast, and that not a man of those who now stood round had ever laid a hand upon the tiller.
A thrill of superstitious awe ran round as this fact became known, together with the terrible certainty that Lord Trevlyn had not returned with them. Was it indeed a phantom hand that had guided the frail bark through the wild, tossing waves? The bravest man there felt a shiver of awe – the women sobbed, and trembled unrestrainedly.
The boat was put to sea once more without a moment’s delay. The wind was dropping, the tide had turned, and the danger was well nigh over. But heads were shaken in mute despair, and old men shook their heads at the bare idea of the survival of any swimmer, who had been left to battle with the waves round the sunken reef on a stormy winter’s night.
Monica stood like a statue; she heeded neither the wailing of the women, the murmurs of sympathy from the men, nor the clasp of Beatrice’s hand round her cold fingers. She saw nothing, heard nothing, save the tossing, the moaning of the pitiless sea.
The boat came back at last – came back in dead, mournful silence. That silence said all that was needed.
Monica stepped towards the weary, dejected men, who had just left the boat for the second time.
“You have done all that you could,” she said gently. “I thank you from my heart.”
And then she turned quietly away to go home – alone.
No one dared follow her too closely; even Beatrice kept some distance behind, sick with misery and sympathetic despair. Monica’s step did not falter. She went back to the spot where her husband had left her, and stood still, looking out over the sea.
“Good-bye, my love – my own dear love,” she said, very softly and calmly. “It has come at last, as I knew it would, when he held me in his arms for the last time on earth. Did he know it, too?