There was yet another question
unresolved; and to this, I may say, I feared to give an answer; if
he had recognised me, what would he have done?
My fears were immediately diverted from myself, for I saw that I
had been visited in a mistake; and I became persuaded that some
dreadful danger threatened the pavilion. It required some nerve to
issue forth into the black and intricate thicket which surrounded
and overhung the den; but I groped my way to the links, drenched
with rain, beaten upon and deafened by the gusts, and fearing at
every step to lay my hand upon some lurking adversary. The
darkness was so complete that I might have been surrounded by an
army and yet none the wiser, and the uproar of the gale so loud
that my hearing was as useless as my sight.
For the rest of that night, which seemed interminably long, I
patrolled the vicinity of the pavilion, without seeing a living
creature or hearing any noise but the concert of the wind, the sea,
and the rain. A light in the upper story filtered through a cranny
of the shutter, and kept me company till the approach of dawn.
CHAPTER V - TELLS OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN NORTHMOUR, CLARA, AND
MYSELF
With the first peep of day, I retired from the open to my old lair
among the sand-hills, there to await the coming of my wife. The
morning was grey, wild, and melancholy; the wind moderated before
sunrise, and then went about, and blew in puffs from the shore; the
sea began to go down, but the rain still fell without mercy.
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