ding, nay, almost a certitude of a gigantic and deadly
cataclysm.

Her senses began to reel; she seemed not to see anything very
distinctly: even the loved form took on a strange and ghostlike shape.
He now looked preternaturally tall, and there was a mist between her and
him.

She thought that he spoke to her again, but she was not quite sure,
for his voice sounded like some weird and mysterious echo. A bosquet
of climbing heliotrope close by threw a fragrance into the evening air,
which turned her giddy with its overpowering sweetness.

She closed her eyes, for she felt as if she must die, if she held them
open any longer; and as she closed them it seemed to her as if he folded
her in one last, long, heavenly embrace.

He felt her graceful figure swaying in his arms like a tall and slender
lily bending to the wind. He saw that she was but half-conscious, and
thanked heaven for this kindly solace to his heart-breaking farewell.

There was a sloping, mossy bank close by, there where the marble terrace
yielded to the encroaching shrubbery: a tangle of pale pink monthly
roses made a bower overhead. She was just sufficiently conscious to
enable him to lead her to this soft green couch. There he laid her
amongst the roses, kissed the dear, tired eyes, her hands, her lips, her
tiny feet, and went.

Chapter XVI: The Passport

The rhythmic clapper of oars roused Marguerite from this trance-like
swoon.

In a moment she was on her feet, all her fatigue gone, her numbness
of soul and body vanished as in a flash. She was fully conscious now!
conscious that he had gone! that according to every probability under
heaven and every machination concocted in hell, he would never return
from France alive, and that she had failed to hear the last words which
he spoke to her, had failed to glean his last look or to savour his
final kiss.

Though the night was starlit and balmy it was singularly dark, and
vainly did Marguerite strain her eyes to catch sight of that boat which
was bearing him away so swiftly now: she strained her ears, vaguely
hoping to catch one last, lingering echo of his voice. But all was
silence, save that monotonous clapper, which seemed to beat against her
heart like a rhythmic knell of death.

She could hear the oars distinctly: there were six or eight, she
thought: certainly no fewer. Eight oarsmen probably, which meant the
larger boat, and undoubtedly the longer journey... not to London only