She broke off, wildly sobbing, yet still clinging to him in agonised entreaty. The man's face, with its crude ferocity, the untamed glitter of its fiery eyes, was still bent to hers, but she no longer shrank from it. The power that moved her was too immense to be swayed by lesser things. His attitude no longer affected her, one way or another. It had ceased to count, so that she only wrenched from him this one great boon.
And Rufus must have realised the fact, for he stood up sharply and backed against the door, releasing her.
"You don't know what you're saying," he said gruffly.
"I do--I do!" With anguished reiteration she answered him. "I'm not the sort that offers and then doesn't pay. Oh, don't waste time talking! Every moment may be his last. Go down--go down to the shore! You're so strong. Save him--save him!"
She beat her clasped hands against his broad chest, till abruptly he put up his own again and held them still.
"Columbine!" For the second time he uttered her name, and for the second time the command in his voice caught and compelled her. "Just you listen a minute!" he said, and as he spoke his look swept her with a mastery that dominated even her agony. "If I go and save the cur, you've done with him for ever--you swear that?"
"Yes!" she cried. "Yes! Only go--only go!"
But he remained square and resolute against the door. "And you'll stay here--you swear to stay here till I come back?"
He bent to her once more; his gaze possessed her. "And--afterwards?" he said, his voice deep and very low.
Her eyes had been raised to his; they closed suddenly and sharply, as if to shut him out. "I will give you--all I have," she said, and shivered, violently, uncontrollably.
The next instant his hands were gone from hers, and she was free.
Trembling, she sank upon the sofa, hiding her face; and even as she did so the banging of the cottage door told her he was gone.
Thereafter she sat crouched for a long, long time in the paralysis of a great fear.
Down on the howling shore the great waves were hurling themselves in vast cataracts of snow-white surf that shone, dimly radiant, in the fitful moonlight. The sky was covered with broken clouds, and a rising storm-wind blew in gusts along the cliffs. The peace of the night was utterly shattered, the shining glory had departed. A wild and desolate grandeur had succeeded it.