Fay grew white to her very lips. “The moon had not gone down overnight with its double halo for nothing,” she said to herself.
“Ma mignonne,” said Val tenderly, “I had no idea you were so superstitious Have you no faith in me? Death shall not lay its finger—”
“Hush,” interrupted Fay solemnly; “you forget! Our compact is to accept death, not to fight it!”
Val made no reply. He gave a vigorous push to the boat which sent it out with a lurch on to the swaying waves. Mechanically, he drew his oar up into the boat, as he seated himself facing the girl.
She noted the action. “You are breaking faith with me,” she said reproachfully; “if that oar lies near your hand, you would use it in an emergency and dictate a decision to Fate!”
“Well, then, let it go,” he answered, giving the oar a vigorous spin over the side. “You are right, Fay; if I found ourselves in sight of Mull and the yacht, and that oar lay handy, I should certainly make good use of it.”
They watched the oar rise and fall with the waves, and then disappear into the blackness that was slowly circumscribing the waters of the loch on three of its sides.
“Now we are nothing more than whirling leaves upon the tide; Fate has us in her grip right enough,” said Val.
Fay made no reply. She had sunk back in her seat once more, and with a look in her eyes that puzzled Val, was peering curiously into the darkness, now on this side, now on that.
What had become of those dimly outlined shapes that had before seemed so real to her? Had the one spread its wings and taken flight and the other melted into the shadows out of which it was born?
The veil of darkness through which those shapes had seemed to smile and frown at her was consolidating into a wall now, that, little by little, was shutting out the shores of the loch on either side of the placid waters over which they drifted so easily and pleasantly, shutting her in, in fact, alone with Val in that cockleshell of a boat and cutting them both off, at least so it seemed, from the whole of the rest of creation.
Val’s thoughts were busy also. It was all very well for him to declare that they were simply whirling leaves upon the waters, and that they had now nothing to do but bow to Fate’s decree. In his heart of hearts it seemed to him that Fate was dealing very well with him. Was not the yacht within a few miles of them? and what more likely than that they should drift within sight of it—at least he might venture to say there were no odds against the likelihood of such a thing. And then, why a signal from him, a shrill note on the gold whistle that hung upon his chain would set Archie steaming up towards them in a trice.
Or, supposing that instead of towards Mull, they were to drift northwest towards Skye, what more probable than that they would be sighted by one of the steamers that ply between the coast and the Hebrides, and that, seeing their helpless condition, it would at once put to and take them on board. But, whichever of these contingencies, or any other equally felicitous, came about, one thing was certain—the woman whom he idolized and worshipped, and from whom he had been kept apart by an evil conjunction of circumstances, was his own now, his own special possession, and would so remain to the last hour of her life.
This was a thought to grow jubilant over surely. Could it be that Fay as yet did not realise the glorious freedom that was dawning for her, that she sat so still and silent? Or was her heart quaking lest she might lose that freedom before it was well begun—lest at that very moment old Euan Mackreth might be calling together his men, and organising a pursuit and recapture.
A question that Fay asked sharply—suddenly—at that moment seemed to give colour to the latter surmise. It was: “Shall we ever—ever get out of this loch?”
“We are getting out of it as fast as we can,” he answered. “But don’t be frightened, my darling; they can’t possibly have discovered your absence yet awhile; it was such a clever idea of yours to plead headache and lock your door—”
“I was not thinking of anything of that sort,” interrupted Fay, “but I feel as if I were shut up in prison in this loch—being stifled by inches—with the darkness.”
“With the darkness? Don’t you think it’s with this hot haze that hangs about the shore? But when we round that point we shall get a glimpse of the moon, and see a little which way we are going. There’ll be a moon for about a couple of hours tonight.”
The point was rounded and the moon came in sight, hanging low over the green plateau crowned by the beech woods and the castle. The stretch of translucent sky that before had shown like a plane of agate, was now flooded with white light, and the castle appeared as if carved in black bas-relief upon a silver plane.
Fay turned her head sharply away from it.
“I shall never get the sight of that place from off my eyeballs!” she exclaimed. “When I lie dying I believe it will dance before my eyes!”
“When I lie dying!” Why here was the croak of a raven indeed! What had come over Fay tonight? Thoughts such as these were intolerable at such a time.
Perhaps Fay thought so too. For suddenly, without a word of prelude, she broke into a gay, coquettish song.
Her voice was a high, light mezzo, and the songs that suited her best were of
