But one dim January evening, as she pursued her way along the margin of the sea, she was startled by seeing some large object lying dark upon the pebbly beach. Her heart beat more fast than was its wont, for she saw as she approached that it was the figure of a man, lying face downwards upon the damp stones.
He did not look like a fisherman, he was too well dressed, and there seemed something not altogether unfamiliar in the aspect of the slight, well-proportioned figure. For a moment she could not recall the association, but as the dogs ran up snuffing and growling, the man started and sat up, revealing the pale, haggard face of Conrad Fitzgerald.
Monica recoiled with an instinctive gesture of aversion. She had not seen him since those summer days when she had been haunted by the vision of his vindictive face and sinister eyes. But how he had changed since then! She could not help looking at him, he was so pale, so thin; his face was lined as if by pain, and his fiery eyes were set in deep hollows. There was something rather awful in his appearance, yet he did not look so wicked, so repulsive, as he had done many times before.
A strange look of terror gleamed in his eyes as they met those of Monica.
“Go away!” he cried wildly. “What do you come here for? Why do you look at me like that? Go—in mercy, go!”
Monica was startled at his wild words and looks. Surely he was mad. But if so, she must show no fear of him; she knew enough to be aware of that.
“What are you doing out here in the dark?” she said. “You ought not to be lying there this cold night. You had better go home, or you will lose your way in the dark.”
“Lose my way in the dark! It is always dark now—always, since that dark night—ha! ha!—that night!” His laugh was terrible in its wild despair. “Why do you look at me? Why do you speak to me? You should not! You should not! You would not if——oh, God! are you a ghost too?”
Such an awful look of horror shone out of his eyes that Monica’s blood ran cold. His gaze was fixed on vacancy. He looked straight at her, yet as if he did not see her, but something beyond. The anguish and despair painted upon that wild, yet still beautiful, face smote Monica’s heart with a sense of deep sorrow and pity.