Valmai looked round her with awe and horror.
"Did these innocent-looking, simple people belong to that thronging
crowd who were hurrying on to their own destruction? was she herself
one of them? Cardo?--her uncle?"
The thought was dreadful, her breath came and went quickly, her eyes
were full of tears, and she felt as if she must rise suddenly and rush
into the open air, but as she looked round the chapel she caught sight
through one of the windows of the dark blue sky of night, bespangled
with stars, and a glow of purer and healthier feeling came over her.
She would not believe it--outside was the fresh night wind, outside was
the silver moonlight, and in the words of the poet of whom she had
never heard she said within herself, "No! God is in Heaven, it's all
right with the world!" Her joyous nature could not brook the saddening
influences of the Methodist creed, and as she passed out into the clear
night air amongst the crowd of listeners, and heard their mournful
sighs and their evident appreciation of the sermon, or rather sermons,
for there had been two, her heart bounded with a sense of relief; joy
and happiness were its natural elements, and she returned to them as an
innocent child rushes to its mother's arms.
Leaving the thronged road, she took the rugged path down the hillside,
alone under the stars, and remembering Cardo's question, "Will you come
home by the shore?" she wondered whether he was anywhere near! As she
reached the bottom of the cliff and trod on the firm, hard sand below,
she saw him standing in the shadow of a rock, and gazing out at the sea
over which the moon made a pathway of silver.
The fishing boats from Ynysoer were out like moths upon the water.
They glided from the darkness across that path of light and away again
into the unknown. On one a light was burning.
"That is the Butterfly," thought Valmai, "I am beginning to know them
all; and there is Cardo Wynne!" and with a spirit of mischief gleaming
in her eyes and dimpling her face, she approached him quietly, her
light footstep making no sound on the sand.
She was close behind him and he had not turned round, but still stood
with folded arms looking out over the moonlit scene. Having reached
this point, Valmai's fun suddenly deserted her. What should she do
next? should she touch him? No! Should she speak to him? Yes; but
what should she say? Cardo! No! and a faint blush overspread her
face. A mysterious newborn shyness came over her, and it was quite a
nervous, trembling voice that at last said: "Mr. Wynne?"
Cardo turned round quickly.
"Valmai! Miss Powell!" he said, "how silently you came upon me! I was
dreaming. Come and stand here. Is not that scene one to make a poet
of the most prosaic man?"