You are simply drifting now--simply drifting."
"But into my desired haven," whispered Isabel, with a piteous quiver of
the lips.
He straightened himself with a gesture of exasperation. "You are wasting
yourself over a myth, an illusion. On my soul, Isabel, what a wicked
waste it is! Have you forgotten the days when you and I roamed over the
world together? Have you forgotten Egypt and all we did there? Life was
worth having then."
"Ah! I thought so." She met his look with eyes that did not seem to see
him. "We were children then, Eustace," she said, "children playing on the
sands. But the great tide caught us. You breasted the waves, but I was
broken and thrown aside. I could never play on the sands again. I can
only lie and wait for the tide to come again and float me away."
He clenched his hands. "Do you think I would let you go--like that?" he
said.
"It is the only kindness you can do me," she answered in her low voice of
pleading.
He swung round to go. "I curse the day," he said very bitterly, "that you
ever met Basil Everard! I curse his memory!"
She flinched at the words as if they had been a blow. Her face turned
suddenly grey. She clasped her hands very tightly together, saying no
word.
He went to the door and paused, his back towards her. "I came in," he
said then, "to tell you that the de Vignes have offered to put us up at
their place for the wedding.
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