RACHAEL. I know your motive--your love. I misprize neither. But if women
loved their mothers better than the man of their hearts there would be
the end of the race. And what is the will of either of us against Fate?
Cannot you understand? Why was he permitted to reach me to-night? What
man has ever lived through a hurricane before? Nature has held her
breath to let him pass. Do you suppose your puny strength can hold us
apart? Quick! Answer! (She half turns towards the door leading into the
next room.)

MISTRESS FAWCETT. You have conquered. But wait until I am out of this
room. (She falls heavily on her crutch, and hobbles out. Rachael holds
her breath until the door closes behind her, then runs forward and
lowers the bar. Hamilton enters. He is hatless. His long cape is torn
and covered with leaves and mould. He closes and bars the door behind
him, and Rachael, seeing him safe, and her desire so near to fulfilment,
experiences a revulsion of feeling. She falls back, and hurriedly
fetching a pan of coals from a corner, fires them, and mixes a punch.)

RACHAEL (hurriedly). You are cold. You are exhausted. In a moment I will
give you a hot drink.

[Hamilton, after a long look at her, throws himself into a chair by the
table, and stares at the floor, his hand at his head.]

HAMILTON. Thank you. I need it. I feel as if all the hurricane were in
my head.

RACHAEL (pouring the punch into a silver goblet). Drink.

HAMILTON. Gratefully! (He raises the goblet.) I drink--to the hurricane.

RACHAEL (she moves restlessly about, but remains on the other side of
the table). Tell me of your journey here. I should think you would be
gray and old! Ah, the color comes back to your face! You are young
again, already.

HAMILTON (he has drained the goblet and set it on the table; he rises,
and looks full at her). Did you doubt that I would come?

RACHAEL (speaking lightly, and averting her eyes). I thought you were on
St. Kitts.

HAMILTON (vehemently). Still I would have come. I knew the hurricane
would give you to me. And out there, fighting inch by inch, the breath
beaten out of my body, my arms almost torn from their sockets, maddened
by the terrible confusion, I still knew that Nature was driving me to
you, as she has separated us since the day I came, with her smiling,
intolerable calm--

RACHAEL (still half frivolous under the sudden wrench from
tragic despair). And, after that terrible experience, you still
have love a