TO-MORROW
Page: 27

cheeks, her hard forehead, her heavy eyelids, her
faded lips; and the measured blows and sighs of
the rising tide accompanied the enfolding power
of his arms, the overwhelming might of his caresses.
It was as if the sea, breaking down the wall pro-
tecting all the homes of the town, had sent a wave
over her head. It passed on; she staggered back-
wards, with her shoulders against the wall, ex-
hausted, as if she had been stranded there after a
storm and a shipwreck.

She opened her eyes after awhile; and listening
to the firm, leisurely footsteps going away with
their conquest, began to gather her skirts, staring
all the time before her. Suddenly she darted
through the open gate into the dark and deserted
street.

"Stop!" she shouted. "Don't go!"

And listening with an attentive poise of the head,
she could not tell whether it was the beat of the
swell or his fateful tread that seemed to fall cruelly
upon her heart. Presently every sound grew
fainter, as though she were slowly turning into
stone. A fear of this awful silence came to her--
worse than the fear of death. She called upon her
ebbing strength for the final appeal:

"Harry!"

Not even the dying echo of a footstep. Noth-
ing. The thundering of the surf, the voice of the
restless sea itself, seemed stopped. There was not
a sound--no whisper of life, as though she were
alone and lost in that stony country of which she
had heard, where madmen go looking for gold and
spurn the find.

Captain Hagberd, inside his dark house, had
kept on the alert. A window ran up; and in the
silence of the stony country a voice spoke above her
head, high up in the black air--the voice of mad-
ness, lies and despair--the voice of inextinguish-
able hope. "Is he gone yet--that information
fellow? Do you hear him about, my dear?"

She burst into tears. "No! no! no! I don't
hear him any more," she sobbed.

He began to chuckle up there triumphantly.
"You frightened him away. Good girl. Now we
shall be all right. Don't you be impatient, my dear.
One day more."

In the other house old Carvil, wallowing regally