'Dost thou not understand, Pierre?' said Lucy, eyeing with concern and wonder his pale, staring aspect—'The waves: it is the motion of the waves that Isabel speaks of. Look, they are rolling, direct from the sea now.'
Again Pierre lapsed into a still stranger silence and revery.
It was impossible altogether to resist the force of this striking corroboration of by far the most surprising and improbable thing in the whole surprising and improbable story of Isabel. Well did he remember her vague reminiscence of the teetering sea, that did not slope exactly as the floors of the unknown, abandoned, old house among the French-like mountains.
While plunged in these mutually neutralising thoughts of the strange picture and the last exclamations of Isabel, the boat arrived at its destination—a little hamlet on the beach, not very far from the great blue sluice-way into the ocean, which was now yet more distinctly visible than before.
'Don't let us stop here,' cried Isabel. 'Look, let us go through there! Bell must go through there! See! see! out there upon the blue! yonder, yonder! far away—out, out!—far, far away, and away, and away, out there! where the two blues meet, and are nothing—Bell must go!'
'Why, Isabel,' murmured Lucy, 'that would be to go to far England or France; thou wouldst find but few friends in far France, Isabel.'
'Friends in far France? And what friends have I here?—Art thou my friend? In thy secret heart dost thou wish me well? And for thee, Pierre, what am I but a vile clog to thee; dragging thee back from all thy felicity? Yes, I will go yonder—yonder; out there! I will, I will! Unhand me! Let me plunge!'
For an instant, Lucy looked incoherently from one to
