A worm ithe bud.
One day the reviewer said,Let us go to the cliffs again,Elfride;and,without consulting her wishes,he moved as if to start at once.
The cliff of our dreadful adventure?she inquired,with a shudder.Death stares me in the face in the person of that cliff.
Nevertheless,so entirely had she sunk her individuality in his that the remark was not uttered as an expostulation,and she immediately prepared to accompany him.
No,not that place,said Knight.It is ghastly to me,too.
That other,I mean;what is its name?--Windy Beak.
Windy Beak was the second cliff in height along that coast,and,as is frequently the case with the natural features of the globe no less than with the intellectual features of men,it enjoyed the reputation of being the first.Moreover,it was the cliff to which Elfride had ridden with Stephen Smith,on a well-remembered morning of his summer visit.
So,though thought of the former cliff had caused her to shudder at the perils to which her lover and herself had there been exposed,by being associated with Knight only it was not so objectionable as Windy Beak.That place was worse than gloomy,it was a perpetual reproach to her.
But not liking to refuse,she said,It is further than the other cliff.
Yes;but you can ride.
And will you too?
No,Ill walk.
A duplicate of her original arrangement with Stephen.Some fatality must be hanging over her head.But she ceased objecting.
Very well,Harry,Ill ride,she said meekly.
A quarter of an hour later she was in the saddle.But how different the mood from that of the former time.She had,indeed,given up her position as queen of the less to be vassal of the greater.Here was no showing off now;no scampering out of sight with Pansy,to perplex and tire her companion;no saucy remarks on LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.Elfride was burdened with the very intensity of her love.
Knight did most of the talking along the journey.Elfride silently listened,and entirely resigned herself to the motions of the ambling horse upon which she sat,alternately rising and sinking gently,like a sea bird upon a sea wave.
When they had reached the limit of a quadrupeds possibilities in walking,Knight tenderly lifted her from the saddle,tied the horse,and rambled on with her to the seat in the rock.Knight sat down,and drew Elfride deftly beside him,and they looked over the sea.
Two or three degrees above that melancholy and eternally level line,the ocean horizon,hung a sun of brass,with no visible rays,in a sky of ashen hue.It was a sky the sun did not illuminate or enkindle,as is usual at sunsets.This sheet of sky was met by the salt mass of gray water,flecked here and there with white.A waft of dampness occasionally rose to their faces,which was probably rarefied spray from the blows of the sea upon the foot of the cliff.
Elfride wished it could be a longer time ago that she had sat there with Stephen as her lover,and agreed to be his wife.The significant closeness of that time to the present was another item to add to the list of passionate fears which were chronic with her now.
Yet Knight was very tender this evening,and sustained her close to him as they sat.
Not a word had been uttered by either since sitting down,when Knight said musingly,looking still afar--
I wonder if any lovers in past years ever sat here with arms locked,as we do now.Probably they have,for the place seems formed for a seat.
Her recollection of a well-known pair who had,and the much-talked-of loss which had ensued therefrom,and how the young man had been sent back to look for the missing article,led Elfride to glance down to her side,and behind her back.Many people who lose a trinket involuntarily give a momentary look for it in passing the spot ever so long afterwards.They do not often find it.Elfride,in turning her head,saw something shine weakly from a crevice in the rocky sedile.Only for a few minutes during the day did the sun light the alcove to its innermost rifts and slits,but these were the minutes now,and its level rays did Elfride the good or evil turn of revealing the lost ornament.
Elfrides thoughts instantly reverted to the words she had unintentionally uttered upon what had been going on when the earring was lost.And she was immediately seized with a misgiving that Knight,on seeing the object,would be reminded of her words.
Her instinctive act therefore was to secure it privately.
It was so deep in the crack that Elfride could not pull it out with her hand,though she made several surreptitious trials.
What are you doing,Elfie?said Knight,noticing her attempts,and looking behind him likewise.
She had relinquished the endeavour,but too late.
Knight peered into the joint from which her hand had been withdrawn,and saw what she had seen.He instantly took a penknife from his pocket,and by dint of probing and scraping brought the earring out upon open ground.
It is not yours,surely?he inquired.
Yes,it is,she said quietly.
Well,that is a most extraordinary thing,that we should find it like this!Knight then remembered more circumstances;What,is it the one you have told me of?
Yes.
The unfortunate remark of hers at the kiss came into his mind,if eyes were ever an index to be trusted.Trying to repress the words he yet spoke on the subject,more to obtain assurance that what it had seemed to imply was not true than from a wish to pry into bygones.
Were you really engaged to be married to that lover?he said,looking straight forward at the sea again.
Yes--but not exactly.Yet I think I was.
O Elfride,engaged to be married!he murmured.
It would have been called a--secret engagement,I suppose.But dont look so disappointed;dont blame me.
No,no.
Why do you say "No,no,"in such a way?Sweetly enough,but so barely?
Knight made no direct reply to this.Elfride,I told you once,he said,following out his thoughts,that I never kissed a woman as a sweetheart until I kissed you.A kiss is not much.