And now, as she stood on the point which she had reached by the exertion of all her physical and moral powers, and however lovingly she stretched out her arms, felt that the object of her desires still lay so far off, so utterly beyond her reach—now for the first time she believed that she understood the dumb, terrifying voices of the solitude and loneliness around her, the whispering and rustling of the moor, the wailing spirit-voices in the air. Alone! alone!
Infinite sorrow welled up in her heart, her knees gave way, she sank down upon a stone near the logs, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears like a helpless, lost child. She did not see that a man, who was leaning against the signal-post behind the logs, watching the sea, startled by the strange sound near him, stepped forward. She did not hear his steps as he hastened towards her over the short turf.
“Elsa!”
She sprang up with a half-stifled cry.
“Elsa!”
And again she cried out—a wild cry of joy, which rang strangely through the stillness, and she lay on his breast, clinging to him like a drowning woman.
“Reinhold! My Reinhold!”
She wept, she laughed, she cried again and again: “Reinhold, my Reinhold!”
Speechless with happiness and astonishment at the sweet surprise, he drew her down to him on the stone on which she had been sitting.
She leaned her head on his breast. “I have so longed for you.”
“Elsa, my darling Elsa!”
“I was forced to come, I could not help it; I was drawn here, as if by invisible hands. And now I have you! Oh! do not leave me again. Take me with you yonder to your home. My home is there with you. With you! Do not drive me out again into the desolate, false and loveless world which lies behind me. With you only is happiness, peace, joy, truth, fidelity! Oh! how your true loving heart beats, I feel it. It loves me as I love you. It has longed for me, as my poor, distracted heart has longed for you.”
“Yes, my Elsa, it has longed for you intensely, unspeakably. I came up here because it gave me no peace. I wanted to have one look only to where you were—one last look, before—”
“Before what—for heaven’s sake!”
He had led her the few steps to the logs, and now stood, with his arm round her, close to the edge of the hill, which sloped so precipitously down from its frowning brow, that they seemed to be hanging immediately over the grey sea in the grey sky.
“Look, Elsa! There comes the storm. I hear it, I see it, as if it were already let loose. It may be hours first, but it will come, it must come with terrible fury. Everything shows signs of it. That leaden sea below us will be tossed in wild waves, whose spray will be thrown up even to this height. Woe to the ships that are not already safe in harbour, and perhaps even there they are not secure from its wild fury. Woe to the low-lying lands beneath us. I meant to have written to you this morning, because I saw it coming even yesterday, and to tell you that you would do better to leave Warnow, but you would not have gone.”
“Never! I am so proud that you trust me, that you have told me this. And if the storm breaks, and I know that your dear life is in danger, I will be firm; or if I tremble I will not fear, only to myself I will say, ‘He could not do his duty, he could not be the brave true man whom I love, if he knew that I were weeping and wringing my hands, whilst he must guide and command as on that evening;’ do you remember? Do you know, my darling, that I loved you then! and do you remember you told me that I had the eyes of a sailor? Oh! how I remember every word, every look, and how pleased I was that I was not obliged to give you back the compass directly! I did not mean to keep it, I meant you to have it again.”
“You were more honest then than I was, my darling. I was determined not to give you back your glove. You had taken it off when you were looking through my telescope; it lay on the deck and I took it up. Since then it has never left me. See! it has been my talisman. We sailors are superstitious. I have sworn never to part with it, until instead of the glove, I hold your dear hand in mine forever.”
He kissed the little grey glove before he returned it to his breast-pocket. They had again seated themselves on the stone—softly whispering, caressing, jesting, in loving talk, heart to heart and lip to lip, forgetting, in the paradise of their young love, the desert which surrounded them, the darkness which was ever deepening, and the storm which was brooding in the leaden air, over the leaden sea, like the angel of destruction over a world which he hoped to annihilate forever, and to cast back into primeval chaos. A dull rumbling sound quivering in the distance attracted their attention; followed immediately by a sound of rushing through the air, without any motion that they could feel even at this height, and then again followed the deathlike stillness.
Reinhold sprang up.
“It comes quicker than I thought. We have not a moment to lose.”
“What are you going to do?”
“To take you back.”
“You cannot. You must be at your post.
