"I assure you I have nothing to do with it," he answered, with frank amazement; "it's quite spontaneous.And look--they are even decorating ME."It was true; they had thrown a half dozen strings of shells on Hurlstone's unresisting shoulders, and, unheeding the few words he laughingly addressed them in their own dialect, they ran off a few paces, and remained standing, as if gravely contemplating their work.Suddenly, with a little outcry of terror, they turned, fled wildly past them, and disappeared in the bushes.
Miss Keene and Hurlstone rose at the same moment, but the young girl, taking a step forward, suddenly staggered, and was obliged to clasp one of the arms of the cross to keep herself from falling.
Hurlstone sprang to her side.
"Are you ill?" he asked hurriedly."You are quite white.What is the matter?"A smile crossed her colorless face.
"I am certainly very giddy; everything seems to tremble.""Perhaps it is the flowers," he said anxiously."Their heavy perfume in this close air affects you.Throw them away, for Heaven's sake!"But she clutched them tighter to her heart as she leaned for a moment, pale yet smiling, against the cross.
"No, no!" she said earnestly; "it was not that.But the children were frightened, and their alarm terrified me.There, it is over now."She let him help her to her seat again as he glanced hurriedly around him.It must have been sympathy with her, for he was conscious of a slight vertigo himself.The air was very close and still.Even the pleasant murmur of the waves had ceased.
"How very low the tide is!" said Eleanor Keene, resting her elbow on her knees and her round chin upon her hand."I wonder if that could have frightened those dear little midgets?" The tide, in fact, had left the shore quite bare and muddy for nearly a quarter of a mile to seaward.
Hurlstone arose, with grave eyes, but a voice that was unchanged.
"Suppose we inquire? Lean on my arm, and we'll go up the hill towards the Mission garden.Bring your flowers with you."The color had quite returned to her cheek as she leant on his proffered arm.Yet perhaps she was really weaker than she knew, for he felt the soft pressure of her hand and the gentle abandonment of her figure against his own as they moved on.But for some preoccupying thought, he might have yielded more completely to the pleasure of that innocent contact and have drawn her closer towards him; yet they moved steadily on, he contenting himself from time to time with a hurried glance at the downcast fringes of the eyes beside him.Presently he stopped, his attention disturbed by what appeared to be the fluttering of a black-winged, red-crested bird, in the bushes before him.The next moment he discovered it to be the rose-covered head of Dona Isabel, who was running towards them.Eleanor withdrew her arm from Hurlstone's.
"Ah, imbecile!" said Dona Isabel, pouncing upon Eleanor Keene like an affectionate panther."They have said you were on the seashore, and I fly for you as a bird.Tell to me quick," she whispered, hastily putting her own little brown ear against Miss Keene's mouth, "immediatamente, are you much happy?""Where is Mr.Brace?" said Miss Keene, trying to effect a diversion, as she laughed and struggled to get free from her tormentor.
"He, the idiot boy! Naturally, when he is for use, he comes not.
But as a maniac--ever! I would that I have him no more.You will to me presently give your--brother! I have since to-day a presentimiento that him I shall love! Ah!"She pressed her little brown fist, still tightly clutching her fan, against her low bodice, as if already transfixed with a secret and absorbing passion.
"Well, you shall have **** then," said Miss Keene, laughing; "but was it for THAT you were seeking me?""Mother of God! you know not then what has happened? You are a blind--a deaf--to but one thing all the time? Ah!" she said quickly, unfolding her fan and modestly diving her little head behind it, "I have ashamed for you, Miss Keene.""But WHAT has happened?" said Hurlstone, interposing to relieve his companion."We fancied something"--"Something! he says something!--ah, that something was a temblor!
An earthquake! The earth has shaken himself.Look!"She pointed with her fan to the shore, where the sea had suddenly returned in a turbulence of foam and billows that was breaking over the base of the cross they had just quitted.
Miss Keene drew a quick sigh.Dona Isabel had ducked again modestly behind her fan, but this time dragging with her other arm Miss Keene's head down to share its discreet shadow as she whispered,--"And--infatuated one!--you two never noticed it!"
