He hurried forward, hoarse breathing. A note of terrible joy cracked his
voice when the thought came to him that she was hiding mischievously.
That was it--she was hiding--just fooling her old father. Come; it
wouldn't do to be far from his side on these dark nights. The sea was
wide and uncertain--wide and uncertain.
But he remembered that ominous purchase of the pearls by Deep-water
Peter, and shivered. His voice passed into a wail. Little by little he
stumbled through the hemlock grove, beseeching each tree to yield up out
of obdurate shadow that beloved form, to vouchsafe him the lisp of
flying feet over dead beech leaves. But the trees stood mournfully
apart, unanswering, and rooted deep.
Now he was out upon the pitted crags, calling madly. She should have all
his possessions, and the man into the bargain. Yes, his books, his
silver spoons, that portrait of a man playing on the violin which she
had loved.
With a new hope, he pleaded with her to speak to him, if only once, to
cry out. Had he not said she would, one day? Yes, yes, one little cry of
love, to show that she was not so voiceless as people said.--
He stood with awful expectation, a thick hand bending the lobe of his
ear forward. Then through silver silences a muttering was borne to him,
a great lingering roar made and augmented by a million little
whispers.
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