“You promise, Monica?” [113] [113] “There is no need for that, Conrad. When I say a thing I mean it. We are friends, and I do not change without sufficient reason.” He saw that he had said enough; he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it once with a humility and reverence that could not offend her. Monica wandered down by the lonely cliff path to the shore, revolving many thoughts in her mind, feeling strangely absorbed and abstracted. The wind blew fresh and strong off the sea. The tide rolled in fast, salt, and strong. Monica felt that she wanted to be alone to-day—alone with the great wild ocean that she loved so well, even whilst she feared it too in its fiercer moods. She therefore made her way with the agility and sure-footed steadiness of [114]long practice over a number of great boulders, and along a jutting ledge of rock that stretched a considerable distance out to sea—a sunken reef that had brought to destruction many a hapless fisherman’s craft, and more than one stately vessel. [114] At high tide it was covered, but it would not be high water for some hours yet, and Monica, in her restless state of mental tension, had forgotten that the high spring tides were lashing the sea to fury just now upon this iron-bound coast, rendered more swift and strong and high by the steady way in which the wind set towards the land. Standing on the great flat rock at the end of the sunken reef, a rock that was never covered even at the highest tides, Monica was soon lost in so profound a [115]reverie that time flew by unheeded; and only when the giant waves began to throw their spray about her feet as they dashed up against the rock, did she suddenly rouse up to the consciousness that for once in her life she had forgotten herself, and forgotten the uncertain temper of her tyrant playfellow, and had allowed her retreat to be cut off. [115] She looked round her quietly and steadily, not frightened, but fully conscious of her danger. The reef was already covered; it would be impossible to retrace her footsteps with the waves dashing wildly over the sunken rocks. Monica was a bold and practised swimmer, but to swim ashore in a heavy sea such as was now running was obviously out of the question. To stand upon that lonely rock until the [116]tide fell again was a
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