For a time she seemed overwhelmed by his lava-like torrent of words, and stood with bowed head and shrinking, trembling form; but when he ceased she turned to him and said bitterly and emphatically: 

“I did not understand what I was doing, nor would my brain have taught me were I all intellect like yourself.  I half wish you had left me to drown,” and with a slight, despairing gesture she turned away and did not look back.

Ackland’s face lighted up with a sudden flash of intelligence and deep feeling.  He started to recall her, hesitated, and watched her earnestly until she disappeared; then looking out on the scowling ocean, he took off his hat and exclaimed in a deep, low tone: 

“By all that’s divine, can this be?  Is it possible that through the suffering of her own awakening heart she is learning to know the pain she has given to others?  Should this be true, the affair is taking an entirely new aspect, and Munson will be avenged as neither of us ever dreamed would be possible.”

He resumed his old position and thought long and deeply, then rejoined his cousin, who was somewhat surprised to find that his bitter mood had given place to his former composure.

“How is this, Jack?” she asked.  “As the storm grows wilder without, you become more serene.”

“Only trying to make amends for my former bearishness,” he said carelessly, but with a little rising color.

“I don’t understand you at all,” she continued discontentedly.  “I saw you sulking in that out-of-the-way corner, and I saw Miss Van Tyne approach you hesitatingly and timidly, with the purpose, no doubt, of thanking you.  Of course I did not stay to watch, but a little later I met Miss Van Tyne, and she looked white and rigid.  She has not left her room since.”

“You take a great interest in Miss Van Tyne.  It is well you are not in my place.”

“I half wish I was and had your chances.  You are more pitiless than the waves from which you saved her.”

“I can’t help being just what I am,” he said coldly.  “Good-night.”  And he too disappeared for the rest of the evening.

The rain continued to fall in blinding torrents, and the building fairly trembled under the violence of the wind.  The guests drew together in the lighted rooms, and sought by varied amusements to pass the time until the fierceness of the storm abated, few caring to retire while the uproar of the elements was so great.

At last as the storm passed away, and the late-rising moon threw a sickly gleam on the tumultuous waters, Eva looked from her window with sleepless eyes, thinking sadly and bitterly of the past and future.  Suddenly a dark figure appeared on the beach in the track of the moonlight.  She snatched an opera-glass, but could not recognize the solitary form.  The thought would come, however, that it was Ackland; and if it were, what were his thoughts and what place had she in them?  Why was he watching so near the spot that might have been their burial-place?