After all, she said to herself, presently, three was not late for a ball. The rest of the people were only beginning to go away. And a parting which might be for ever! “It may be for years, and it may be for ever.” The song came into her mind and breathed itself all about her, as a song has a way of doing. Poor things, poor young things! and perhaps they might never see each other again. “Partings that press the life from out young hearts.” Katherine turned with a sigh and made a little round of the cliff again, without thinking of the view. And then she turned suddenly to go back, and looked out upon the wonderful round of the sea and sky.
There was something new in it now, something that had not been there before--a tall white sail, like something glorified, like an angel with one foot on the surface of the waves, and one high white wing uplifted. She stood still with a sort of breathless admiration and rapture. Sea and sky had been wonderful before, but they had wanted just that--the white softly moving sail, the faint line of the boat. Where was it she had seen just that before, suddenly coming into sight while she was watching? It was when the _Stella_, when Stella--good heavens!--the _Stella_, and Stella----
Katherine uttered a great cry, and ran wildly towards the house. And then she stopped herself and went back to the cliff and gazed again. It might only be a fishing-boat made into a wonderful thing by the moonlight. When she looked again it had already made a great advance in the direction of the white cliff, to the east; it was crossing the bay, gliding very smoothly on the soft waves. The _Stella_--could it be the _Stella_?--and where was her sister? She gathered up her long white dress more securely and plunged down the dark path towards the beach. The door was locked, there was not a sound anywhere.
“Stella!” she cried, louder than ever. “Stella! where are you?” but nobody heard, not even in the sleeping house, where surely there must be some one waking who could help her. This made her remember that Stevens, the maid, must be waking, or at least not in bed. She hurried in, past the dying fire in the hall, and up the silent stairs, the sleeping house so still that the creak of a plank under her feet sounded like a shriek. But there was no Stevens to be found, neither in the young ladies’ rooms where she should have been, nor in her own; everything was very tidy, there was not a brush nor a pocket-handkerchief out of place, and the trim, white bed was not even prepared for any inhabitant. It was as if it were a bed of death.