The Destroying Angel Part 45

"Hugh," she demanded, white-faced and trembling, "what is the matter?

Where are you going?"

He moved his shoulders uneasily, forcing a short laugh. "I daresay you've guessed it. Undoubtedly you have. Else why--" He didn't finish save by a gesture of resignation.

"You mean you were going--going to try to swim to the mainland?"

"I meant to try it," he confessed.

"But, Hugh--your promise?"

"I'm sorry, Mary; I didn't want to promise. But you see ... this state of things cannot go on. Something has got to be done. It's the only way I know of. I--I can't trust myself--"

"You'd leave me here while you went to seek death--!"

"Oh, it isn't as dangerous as all that. If you'd only been asleep, as I thought you were, I'd've been back before you knew anything about it."

"I should have known!" she declared pa.s.sionately. "I _was_ asleep, but I knew the instant you stirred. Tell me; how long did you stand listening here, to learn if I was awake or not?"

"Several minutes."

"I knew it, though I was asleep, and didn't waken till the board squeaked. I knew you would try it--knew it from the time when you quibbled and evaded and wouldn't give me a straight promise. Oh, Hugh, my Hugh, if you had gone and left me...!"

Her voice shook and broke. She swayed imperceptibly toward him, then away, resting a shoulder against the wall and quivering as though she would have fallen but for that support. He found himself unable to endure the reproach of those dark and luminous eyes set in the mask of pallor that was her face in the half-light of the hallway. He looked away, humbled, miserable, pained.

"It's too bad," he mumbled. "I'm sorry you had to know anything about it. But ... it can't be helped, Mary. You've got to brace up. I won't be gone four hours at the longest."

"Four hours!" She stood away from the wall, trembling in every limb.

"Hugh, you--you don't mean--you're not going--_now_?"

He nodded a wretched, makeshift affirmation.

"It must be done," he muttered. "Please--"

"But it must not be done! Hugh!" Her voice ascended "I--I can't let you.

I won't let you! You ... It'll be your death--you'll drown. I shall have let you go to your death--"

"Oh, now, really--" he protested.

"But, Hugh, I _know_ it! I feel it here." A hand strayed to rest, fluttering, above her heart. "If I should let you go ... Oh, my dear one, don't, don't go!"

"Mary," he began hoa.r.s.ely, "I tell you--"

"You're only going, Hugh, because ... because I love you so I ... I am afraid to let you love me. That's true, isn't it? Hugh--it's true?"

"I can't stay ..." he muttered with a hang-dog air.

She sought support of the wall again, her body shaken by dry sobbing that it tore his heart to hear. "You--you're really going--?"

He mumbled an almost inaudible avowal of his intention.

"Hugh, you're killing me! If you leave me--"

He gave a gesture of despair and capitulation.

"I've done my best, Mary. I meant to do the right thing. I--"

"Hugh, you mean you won't go?" Joy from a surcharged heart rang vibrant in every syllable uttered in that marvellous voice.

But now he dared meet her eyes. "Yes," he said, "I won't go"--nodding, with an apologetic shadow of his twisted smile. "I can't if ... if it distresses you."

"Oh, my dear, my dear!"

Whitaker started, staggered with amaze, and the burden of his wife in his arms. Her own arms clipped him close. Her fragrant tear-gemmed face brushed his. He knew at last the warmth of her sweet mouth, the dear madness of that first caress.

The breathless seconds spun their golden web of minutes. They did not move. Round them the silence sang like the choiring seraphim....

Then through the magical hush of that time when the world stood still, the thin, clear vibrations of a distant hail:

"_Aho-oy!_"

In his embrace his wife stiffened and lifted her head to listen like a startled fawn. As one their hearts checked, paused, then hammered wildly. With a common impulse they started apart.

"You heard--?"

"Listen!" He held up a hand.

This time it rang out more near and most unmistakable:

"Ahoy! The house, ahoy!"

With the frenzied leap of a madman, Whitaker gained the kitchen door, shook it, controlled himself long enough to draw the bolt, and flung out into the dim silvery witchery of the night. He stood staring, while the girl stole to his side and caught his arm. He pa.s.sed it round her, lifted the other hand, dumbly pointed toward the northern beach. For the moment he could not trust himself to speak.

In the sweep of the anchorage a small white yacht hovered ghostlike, broadside to the island, her glowing ports and green starboard lamp painting the polished ebony of the still waters with the images of many burning candles.

On the beach itself a small boat was drawn up. A figure in white waited near it. Issuing from the deserted fishing settlement, rising over the brow of the uplands, moved two other figures in white and one in darker clothing, the latter leading the way at a rapid pace.

With one accord Whitaker and his wife moved down to meet them. As they drew together, the leader of the landing party checked his pace and called:

"h.e.l.lo there! Who are you? What's the meaning of your fires--?"

Mechanically Whitaker's lips uttered the beginning of the response: "Shipwrecked--signalling for help--"

"Whitaker!" the voice of the other interrupted with a jubilant shout.

"Thank G.o.d we've found you!"

It was Ember.