Chapter XXVI: Confession at Last

Sunset in the wild Loch Scavaig. Far up amid the shoulders and peaks of Garsven there were flashes of flame and the glow of the western skies, with here and there a beam of ruddy light touching the summits of the mountains in the east; but down here, in the lonely and desolate arm of the sea, the bare and riven rocks showed their fantastic forms in a cold grey twilight. There was a murmur of streams in the stillness; and the hollow silence was broken from time to time by the calling of wild-fowl. Otherwise the solitary scene was as voiceless as death; and the only moving thing abroad was the red light in the clouds. The _Caroline_ lay motionless in the dark water. As the sunset fell the sombre and overshadowing hills seemed to loom larger; the twisted and precipitous cliffs grew more and more distant; while a pale blue vapour gathered here and there, as if the spirits of the mountains were advancing under a veil.

Oddly enough, the terror of Coquette had largely subsided when the _Caroline_ had cast anchor. She regarded the gloomy shores with aversion and distrust; but she no longer trembled. Indeed, the place seemed to have exercised some fascination over her; for, while all the others were busy with their own affairs, she did not cease to scan with strange and wondering eyes the sombre stretch of water, the picturesque and desolate coast, and the mystic splendours of the twilight overhead. She kept apart from her friends; and appeared even to regard Lady Drum with a distant and apprehensive look.

Lady Drum resolved that she would speak to the Minister, when occasion offered. She was afraid that this niece of his was an incomprehensible young person, given over to visions and dreams, and requiring to be kept well in hand.

Dinner was rather a gloomy affair. Lord Earlshope seemed to consider that, for some reason or other, a conspiracy had been formed against him. He was very courteous and quiet, but spoke chiefly to the Minister, and that with a certain reserve. Lady Drum in vain endeavoured to be lively.

Suddenly the Minister chanced to perceive that there was something wrong. He looked from one to the other; and at last he said--

"This wild scenery has had its effect upon us. We have grown very grave, have we not, Lady Drum?"

"I think we are downright solemn," said Lady Drum, waking herself up as if from a nightmare. "I cannot understand it. Miss Coquette--as I am told they sometimes ca' ye--what does it all mean?"

Coquette looked up with a start.

"I do not know," she said. "To me these mountains look dreadful. I am afraid of them. I should be glad to be away."

Lord Earlshope did not reply to her, or endeavour to reason her out of her vague impressions. On the contrary, he regarded her--when no one else was looking--with a watchful and rather wistful scrutiny, which seemed to leave rather a sad impression on his own face.

The night was cold; and, after dinner, no one proposed to go on deck. Indeed, the autumn was rapidly closing in upon them; and there was comfort in the yellow light of the lamps, the warmth, and the open books down below. Lord Earlshope and Lady Drum proceeded to engage in a game of cribbage; the Minister took up a bundle of MSS.; Coquette receded into a corner.

Then she stole out of the place, and went up on deck. How wonderful was the darkness now!--for it seemed to burn with all manner of weird and fanciful lights. There were white stars dancing on the water--one great planet quivering on the dark plain as if it were a moon. Then over the peaks of the Coolins there still lay the lambent traces of the twilight--a pale metallic glow, which was far too faint to show on the black surface of the sea. A wind had sprung up, too, and it brought with it the sound of the mountain streams from out of the solemn stillness that dwelt everywhere around.

There came into her head the refrain of a song which she used to hear the sailors sing in St. Nazaire--

Après trois ans d'absence
Loin de France,
Ah! quel beau jour,
Que le jour du retour!

"Why cannot I go back there?" she murmured to herself, "where there were no miserable days, no miserable nights? I am terrified of this place--of the people--of what I have become myself. If I could only fly away down to the south, and hear them singing that on the Loire--

Ah! quel beau jour,
Que le jour du retour!

--that is what I would say also, when I saw old Nannette come out to welcome me--and she would laugh, and she would cry to see me----"

The tears were running down her own cheeks. Suddenly there stood by her a tall figure in the darkness, and she started to hear her name pronounced.

"Why do you sit up here alone, Miss Cassilis?" said Lord Earlshope.

She could not answer. He took a seat beside her, and said--

"There is another question I want to ask you. Why have you avoided me these two days, and made me as though I were a stranger to you? Let us be frank with each other. Are you vexed with me because--in a moment of foolishness which I deeply regret--I revealed to you a secret which I ought to have kept to myself?"

"I am not vexed," she said in a low voice. "You must not suppose that."

"But I must suppose something," he said. "Why should I be your _bête noire_, from whom you must fly at every conceivable moment? If I appear on deck you seek refuge with Lady Drum, or go below. If I go below you come on deck. If I join in a conversation you become silent. Why should this be so? I proposed this excursion, as you know, for your especial benefit. The whole thing was planned merely because it might probably amuse you; and yet you are the only one on board who seems unhappy. Why? I broke my compact about returning to Airlie after seeing you a day or two on the voyage, partly through indolence, and partly because I fancied I might make matters smooth and pleasant for you if you went farther. I find, on the contrary, that I have become a kill-joy."

"Oh, no, it is not so!" she said, hurriedly. "There is no one in fault--no one but myself."

"But you are not in fault," he protested. "There has been no fault committed; and I want to know how the old condition of affairs is to be restored. I cannot bear to see you suffering this restraint from morning till night. Rather than have you pass such another day as I know you have passed to-day I would row ashore this moment, and take my chance of finding my way over to Broadford, so that you should have no fear of to-morrow."

"Oh, no, no!" she said, in despair; "you must not do that. And you must not suppose that I am angry with you. But after what you did say the other day----"

"That is it," he said, in a tone of profound disappointment. "I had already fancied my careless talk was a blunder, but I see only now how irretrievable it is. Well, I cannot help it. You shall not suffer the penalty of my stupidity, however. To-morrow morning you shall be free."

So he went away; and she sat still, silent and immovable, with a great pain at her heart. She listened to the murmur of the water along the shore, and it seemed to have taken up the refrain that had been running in her memory, only that it was more vague and more sad. "_Trois ans d'absence ... loin de France ... jour du retour._" Again she was startled by the approach of some one. She knew that Lord Earlshope had returned. He brought with him a thick shawl, and he said, in a somewhat formal and courteous way--

"Lady Drum asks you to put this round you, if you prefer to remain on deck. But the night is chilly, and you ought to go below, I think."

"I do not know why you should speak to me in that tone," she said, with some slight touch of reproach in her voice. "If all this unfortunate thing has happened, why make it worse? I hope you will not make us strangers to each other, or think me ungrateful for all the kindness that you did show to me."

For an instant he stood irresolute, and then he said to her--in so low a voice that it was scarcely heard in the murmur of the sea--

"And I have to thank you for something also. You have given me back a little of my old belief in the sweetness and innocence of good women, and in the nobleness and the mystery of human life. That is not a light matter. It is something to have some of one's old faith back again, however dearly it may be bought. The price has been perhaps heavier than you may have imagined. I have striven this day or two back to make you believe that I had almost forgotten what I told you. I shall never forget it--nor do I wish to. I may tell you that now, when I am about to ask you to say good-bye. It is not for you to be annoyed or troubled with such matters. You will go back to Airlie. You will scarcely remember that I ever told you my wretched and foolish story. But I shall not go back to Airlie--at least not for a while; and when we do meet again, I hope you will have forgotten all this, and will not be afraid to meet me. So good-bye now, for I shall not see you in the morning."

He held out his hand, but she made no response. What was it he heard in the stillness of the night?

Moved by a great fear, he knelt down beside her, and looked into her face. Her eyes were filled with tears; and the sound he had heard was that of a low and bitter sobbing. There broke upon him a revelation far more terrible than that which had informed him of his own sorrow; and it was with a new anxiety in his voice that he said to her--

"Why are you distressed. It is nothing to you--my going away? It cannot be anything to you, surely?"

"It is very much--your going away," she said, with a calmness of despair which startled him; "I cannot bear it. And yet you must go--and never see me again. That will be better for you and for me."

He rose to his feet suddenly; and even in the starlight her tearful and upturned eyes saw that his face was ghastly pale.

"What have I done? What have I done?" he exclaimed, as if accusing himself to the still heavens that burned with their countless stars above him. "My own blunders, my own weakness, I can answer for--I can accept my punishment--but if this poor girl has been made to suffer through me--that is more than I can bear. Coquette--Coquette--tell me you do not mean all this! You cannot mean it--you do not understand my position--you tell me what it is madness to think of! What you say would be to any other man a joy unspeakable--the beginning of a new life to him; but to me----"

He shuddered only, and turned away from her. She rose, and took his hand gently, and said to him, in her low, quiet voice--

"I do not know what you mean; but you must not accuse yourself for me, or give yourself pain. I have made a confession--it was right to do that, for you were going away, and you might have gone with a wrong thought of me, and have looked back and said I was ungrateful. Now you will go away knowing that I am still your friend--that I shall think of you sometimes--and that I shall pray never, never to see you any more, until wo are old people, and we may meet, and laugh at the old stupid folly."

There was a calm sadness in her tone that was very bitter to him: and the next moment he was saying to her in almost a wild way--

"It shall not end thus. Let the past be past, Coquette; and the future ours. Look at the sea out there--far away beyond that you and I may begin a new life; and the sea itself shall wash out all that we want to forget. Will you come, Coquette? Will you give up all your pretty ways, and your quiet home, and your amiable friends, to link yourself to a desperate man, and snatch the joy that the people in this country would deny us? Let us seek a new country for ourselves. You love me, my poor girl, don't you? and see! my hand trembles with the thought of being able to take you away, and fight for you, and make for you a new world, with new surroundings, where you would have but one friend, and one slave. What do you say, Coquette? Why should we two be for ever miserable? Coquette----"

She drew back from him in fear.

"I am afraid of you now," she said, with a strange trembling. "You are another man. What are you?--what are you?--Ah! I do see another face----"

She staggered backward; and then, with a quick cry, fell insensible. He sprang forward to catch her; and he had scarcely done so when the Minister hastily approached.

"What is the meaning of this?" he said.

"She has been sitting too long alone," said Lord Earlshope, as Lady Drum hastened to seize the girl's hands. "The darkness had got hold of her imagination--and that wild light up there----"

For at this moment there appeared over the black peaks of the Coolins a great, shifting flush of pink--that shone up the dark skies and then died out in a semicircle of pale violet fire. In the clear heavens this wild glare gleamed and faded, so that the sea also had its pallid colours blotting out the white points of the stars. Mr. Cassilis paid little attention to the explanation; but it seemed reasonable enough; for the girl, on coming to herself, looked all round at this strange glow of rose-colour overhead, and again shuddered violently.

"She has been nervous all day," said Lady Drum; "she should not have been left alone."

They took her below; but Earlshope remained above. In a little while he went down into the saloon, where Mr. Cassilis sat alone, reading.

"Miss Cassilis will be well in the morning, I hope," he said, somewhat distantly.

"Oh, doubtless, doubtless. She is nervous and excitable--as her father was--but it is nothing serious."

"I hope not," said Earlshope.

He took out writing materials, and hastily wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper, which he folded up and put in an envelope. Then he bade Mr. Cassilis good-night, and retired.

But towards midnight Coquette, lying awake, heard cautious footsteps on deck, and the whispering voices of the men. In the extreme silence her sense of hearing was painfully acute. She fancied she heard a boat being brought round. There was a moment's silence; then the words, "Give way!"--followed by a splash of oars.

She knew that Lord Earlshope was in the boat which was now making for the shore through the darkness of the night. All that had occurred on deck seemed but a wild dream. She knew only that he had left them--perhaps never to see her again in this world; she knew only that her heart was full of anguish; and that her fast-flowing tears could not lessen the aching pain.