She looked up at him. She remembered him as she had seen him during the siege, imperturbable in a storm of shot. "You have faced death many times before," she said.
"Never with you beside me. The dread of this is that I cannot save you." And then, as he looked at her, all that he had come to understand, and had meant to break to her so slowly, lest she should be startled away from him, broke from him at once in impetuous speech. "But death with you, Elizabeth," he cried, "is better to me than life without you. I have known it for only a little time; I can't tell how long it has been true. But, in face of death, you shall know it. Don't think me fickle. You know better than any one else how I played out that game to the bitter end,--no, the happy end,--for at this moment I would rather stand here five minutes and speak out my heart to you, and feel that you love me, and die in your love, Elizabeth, than spend a long life by Katie Archdale's side. My darling, I am selfish. I would send you away to safety if I could; but I must be glad to have you here beside me." For she was clinging to him, and her head, that had from the first been bent to avoid the wind, was almost upon his shoulder. A moment ago he had thought that this would be enough to comfort him if she did not turn from him; now it was not even the beginning, it was only a divine possibility. He bent over her. "Before it is too late, my darling," he said.
But she did not speak. Only, after a moment, she raised her head, and their eyes met.
The wind shrieked in its fury, the water seethed and hissed, and the boat rushed on toward the rocks. The two turned their eyes away to watch the sea, and then back again upon each other.
"It is the water that unites us again," said Archdale, "and this time forever. My wife, kiss me once here before eternity come."
"It is cruel," he answered. "No, I have none. When we touch the rocks the boat will go to pieces in an instant. And look at the sea." She raised her lips to his as he bent over her; no color came into her face; she was already at the gates of death. She spoke a few low words to Archdale, and then they stood together in silence.
Through the blackness of the storm they saw the turrets of foam where the water was raging over the hidden rocks. Elizabeth shivered. "My father!" she said, brokenly. Stephen could speak no word of comfort. He could only clasp her more closely as they waited for the fatal crash. His eyes now rested upon hers, and now measured the distance between the boat and the breakers.