Evelyn Everett-Green - Monica, Volume 3 (of 3)

The boat was put to sea once more without a moment’s delay. The wind was dropping, the tide had turned, and the danger was well nigh over. But heads were shaken in mute despair, and old men shook their heads at the bare idea of the survival of any swimmer, who had been left to battle with the waves round the sunken reef on a stormy winter’s night.

Monica stood like a statue; she heeded neither the wailing of the women, the murmurs of sympathy from the men, nor the clasp of Beatrice’s hand round her cold fingers. She saw nothing, heard nothing, save the tossing, the moaning of the pitiless sea.

The boat came back at last – came back in dead, mournful silence. That silence said all that was needed.

Monica stepped towards the weary, dejected men, who had just left the boat for the second time.

“You have done all that you could,” she said gently. “I thank you from my heart.”

And then she turned quietly away to go home – alone.

No one dared follow her too closely; even Beatrice kept some distance behind, sick with misery and sympathetic despair. Monica’s step did not falter. She went back to the spot where her husband had left her, and stood still, looking out over the sea.

“Good-bye, my love – my own dear love,” she said, very softly and calmly. “It has come at last, as I knew it would, when he held me in his arms for the last time on earth. Did he know it, too? I think he did just at the last. I saw it in his brave, tender face as he gave me that last kiss. But he died doing his duty. I will bear it for his sake.” Yet with an irrepressible gesture of anguish she held out her arms in the darkness, crying out, not loud, indeed, but from the very depth of her broken heart, “Ah, Randolph! – husband – my love! my love!”

That was all; that one passionate cry of sorrow. After it calmness returned to her once more. She stepped towards Beatrice, who stood a little way off, and held out her hand.

“Come, dear,” she said. “We must go home.”

Beatrice was more agitated than Monica. She was convulsed with tearless sobs. She could only just command herself to stumble uncertainly up the steep cliff path that Monica trod with ease and freedom.

The moon was shining clearly now. She could see the gaze that her companion turned for one moment over the tossing waste of waters. She caught the softly-whispered words, “Good-bye, dear love! good bye!” and a sudden burst of tears came to her relief; but Monica’s eyes were dry.

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