Kitabı oku: «Dorrien of Cranston», sayfa 7
“There; now if you should chance to slip I can easily catch you. We had better get back to Minchkil rather soon, in case the wind rises.”
“Oh dear, I forgot that. It looks dreadfully rough already. I feel almost afraid to get into the boat again. Couldn’t we wait until Pollock comes to look for us? He is sure to do so when he finds we don’t come back.”
“Not to be thought of. In half an hour the tide will be all over the landing place. To use a succinct and expressive metaphor, it’s a case of ‘between the devil and the deep sea.’ Careful here!” he enjoined warningly, holding out his hand to help her over a place where the path had fallen away, leaving an ugly and formidable gap, up which the waves were now shooting in clouds of misty spray.
All would have gone well, but just at the moment of stepping across this gap, a piercing, unearthly shriek rang out in their very ears, as something cleft the air with a swirl and a rush almost between their faces. Olive, already unnerved by her former alarm, uttered a quick gasp, and an ashen pallor spread over her features. For a fraction of a moment she stood tottering; then her eyes closed, she swayed heavily and – a strong arm was flung round her and she was held firmly against the cliff.
“Don’t look down, Olive. You’re quite safe now. Keep perfectly cool and do exactly as I tell you.”
The prompt, commanding tone was effectual. And even then, in the moment of her peril, the girl realised that he had called her for the first time by her Christian name. The convulsive shuddering left her frame, which relaxed its terror-strained rigidity. Obeying his directions implicitly, she kept with him step by step, supported by his ready arm, till they reached the slab of flat rock on which they had landed. Meanwhile two great gulls, the cause of what was within an inch of being an awful catastrophe, circled around and around their disturbed eggs, uttering their harsh and peevish shrieks. Roy, whom they found whining uneasily, jumped up in delight. Once in the boat, however, he lay perfectly still. He was not at his ease though, poor fellow, and began to feel uncomfortable, like a Frenchman crossing the Channel.
“There, it’s even as I told you,” said Roland, as having with some trouble effected a successful embarkation, he rested for a moment on his oars. “The ‘landing stage’ will be entirely covered in a few minutes. We were scarcely half an hour on the island, and it was as long as we could have stayed. It’s an abominably dangerous place, all the same, and I don’t wonder the people funk it. The little ‘Skeg’ isn’t landable on at all.”
He had hoisted the sail and they were scudding rapidly before the wind. Olive, looking back at the great rock towers, shuddered. The sea was rising momentarily, and long hillocks of dull green water swept on – line upon line – gathering into knife-like crests to roll and break into surge upon yonder shore. From seaward came the moan of the rising gale, and already the faces of the great cliffs were dim and misty. A dire and blood-curdling suspicion was in her mind. What if it had been the terrible spectre voice after all – and not poor Roy’s honest bay? Her own narrow escape, immediately afterwards, looked ominously significant. She heartily wished they were safe home again.
Splash! Whish!
The boat careened over, dipping her gunwale. The squall was upon them. Roland, with one anxious glance to windward, turned all his attention to the little craft, controlling the tiller with a firm and judicious hand. White crests leaped around them with an angry hiss, the stunning whirl of the blast was in their ears, and overhead the mast danced madly against the wrack-driven sky. Either the gear must carry away or they must capsize. Great streamers of cloud, like horizontal waterspouts, darted across the sky, and there was wild exhilaration in the breath of the salt scud driven before the squall as they stormed along through the white and seething crests. He had dreaded this squall. Now it was upon them he enjoyed the fierce excitement of it. Suddenly the boat careened again, shipping something of a sea. Olive uttered a cry of dismay.
“Don’t be frightened, Olive,” he said, throwing an arm round her in support, for she nearly lost her balance in the furious rocking of the boat. “Why, I could land you on shore at any point I chose, even if we did capsize. I should rather enjoy the swim than otherwise, and I believe you would, too.”
A blush came into the girl’s face. She had caught some of his exhilaration, and gazed fearlessly at the tumbling seas. Her cheeks were wet with the salt spray, and a soft, dark tress which had escaped from its fastening kept blowing across her eyes. Very beautifully did the excitement, dashed with a tinge of apprehension, become her.
“No – I am not afraid,” she answered – “with you.”
These two young people were getting on, you see.
A whirr overhead – a hurtling rush – and a wild hailstorm swept down upon the sea, curbing its fury slightly, and rendering the inmates of the boat very uncomfortable. Poor Roy, whom his master had disposed in such place as to afford the best ballast, looked simply piteous. He shivered, and in his wistful, patient eyes there was a mute appealing look, which his master noticing, could not restrain a laugh at.
“Never mind, Roy, old chap. You’ll be as right as nine-pence directly! Now for it! Kill or cure!” he cried, bringing round the boat’s head a point and a half.
A confused whirl, an upheaval as if they had left the water altogether; and – they were in the comparatively smooth water of Minchkil Bay, and running comfortably for the little fishing village. A few moments later and half a score of stalwart hands had hauled them up high and dry on the beach.
“All’s well that ends well!” cried Roland, helping his companion to alight.
“You’re in tremenjious luck, sir, that’s all I’ve got to say about it!” said the owner of the boat dryly. “Never thought you’d have got back without a bath.”
“Ha-ha! In luck are we, Jem Pollock? Glad to hear you say so, because according to all the rules of that humbugging old superstition of yours we ought to have come to mortal grief. We’ve been exploring The Skegs.”
The man started, and queer looks were exchanged among the group.
“Did you land there, sir?” he asked uneasily.
“Land there? I should rather think we did. Climbed nearly to the top of the rock – as far as we could get. Then ran home at a ripping pace in a thundering squall and a good deal of a sea. So you see, Pollock, on your own admission, the spectre of The Skegs is a fraud of the first water. No ill luck has ensued to us from it – has it now?”
“I devoutly trust it never may, sir,” answered the fisherman in a queer tone.
“And by the way, Pollock, that’s a first-rate little craft of yours. She behaved grandly. You should have seen her run just before we rounded the point yonder. Perhaps she was eager to get away from The Skegs, ha-ha! Well, good-day, my men. Now drink my health, and confusion to my ancestral ghost,” and leaving a substantial largesse with them, he turned and joined Olive.
Was there yet time before they reached home for some foretaste of that ill luck predicted by the superstitious fishermen? Let us see. They were in great spirits as they struck across the down, turning now and again to look back at the storm-lashed sea, and mark how The Skegs were now almost hidden in clouds of spray as the flying waves leaped high against their slippery sides. At length, as they reached the last stile a rumble of approaching wheels was audible on the high road. Now this stile was in a shaky condition, consequently a piece of the woodwork gave way as Olive was in the act of crossing. She must have had a nasty fall, but for the two ready hands prompt to set her securely on her feet. Just then an open carriage swept round the bend of the road from the direction of Wandsborough. So rapidly did it whirl past that Roland had not time to do more than recognise its occupants; yet in that brief moment he took in everything – the pair of high-stepping bays, the silver crest on the harness, even the identity of the men on the box. But what he took in most surely of all was the expression of furious anger through which his father had regarded him, and the no less hostile look on the cold impassive face of his mother.
Chapter Thirteen.
Breakers Ahead
“I sat, Nell,” said Hubert Dorrien, coming into the morning-room, where his sister sat alone. “What the very dickens is wrong now? The veteran’s in an exemplary state of grumps.”
“Well, he isn’t particularly amiable this morning; but then he isn’t always, you know,” answered Nellie.
Hubert shook his head moodily.
“Ah, yes, but there’s something in the wind. He’s far worse than usual, and now he and the missis are hobnobbing together in the library. Now, Nell, be a good girl and tell a fellow what it’s all about.”
“But, Hu, I give you my word I haven’t an idea. It may be nothing, after all.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed her brother irascibly. “I believe you do know, though. You women dearly love beating about the bush and all that sort of thing,” and throwing his leg over the arm of a chair, he flung himself back, his face a picture of unreasonable peevishness. Nor could he afford to await with indifference the paternal storm, for Master Hubert’s conscience was a tolerably blemished article, and now he was speculating with a troubled mind as to which of his peccadilloes might have come to the paternal knowledge.
The girl made no reply, as she bent over her work, while her brother sat uneasily swinging his legs, the apprehensive frown deepening on his brow. Then they heard the door of the study open and their father’s voice saying:
” – And send Hubert here; I want to talk to him. If he is out, he had better come directly he returns.” And the door closed as Mrs Dorrien replied in the affirmative.
“Oh, Lord!” groaned Hubert. “Well, it’s of no use putting off the evil day. Here goes. Oh, it’s nice to have a father! Well, mother, and what’s it all about?” as Mrs Dorrien entered the room.
“I don’t know for certain, dear,” she said anxiously. “But I think your father only wants to talk to you about your allowance.”
A very blank look came into his face. “Couldn’t be much worse,” he muttered, and went to meet his fate.
And soothly, a bad quarter of an hour was in store for him, for it happened that the General had received certain bills on his account – not University duns, but long outstanding London debts, and, as to one, a letter of demand. Cold, sarcastic and incisive was the lecture he poured forth on the head of the luckless Hubert. He reminded him of former scrapes of the kind, of the fact that he would have little or nothing hereafter but what he obtained by his own exertions, and wound up by recommending him to apply himself to his reading with renewed determination.
Hubert, who thought he was getting into smooth water again, began to promise, but once more his father cut him ruthlessly short.
“And now, for the third time,” he said, “I shall have to get you out of the embarrassment into which your own folly has plunged you – but I shall not do so without exacting some guarantee that you will make a good use of your time in return. Your mother tells me that you and Roland are invited to spend a fortnight at Ardleigh Court.”
“Oho!” thought Hubert, noting a slight frown which came over his father’s face at the mention of his brother. “Oho! – so Roland’s in the veteran’s black books, too! Wonder what about.”
” – This invitation you will decline,” went on the hard, condemnatory voice. “Amusement and work in your case don’t agree – and work you must. Every morning from breakfast time till luncheon during the next six weeks I shall expect you to be at your books, unless I see special reason to make an exception. You have done literally no work at all since your return home this vacation, and it is high time you began. And for the last time these” – tapping the bills lying upon his desk – “shall be paid. Are there any more of them outstanding, by the way?”
Now why had not Hubert the courage to make a clean breast of it. Here was an opportunity such as would not occur again. Ah I that slightly receding chin.
“Only two or three, for small amounts,” he faltered.
“Very good. Make a list of them here,” handing him a piece of paper.
” – And that is all? Yes? Then I need not detain you here any further – except again to impress upon you the necessity of attending to what I have been saying.”
Hubert went out of his father’s presence with hot, seething rage at his heart. He to be confined to the house every morning like a schoolboy, with a set task to do. “Gated,” in fact – and that by his own father, and in his home. It was humiliating in the extreme. And there was no way in which the devil within him could find vent.
“Well, dear?” said his mother enquiringly, as he burst into the morning-room, where she had been anxiously awaiting the result of the interview. “And now I hope things are all right.”
“All right?” echoed Hubert, his countenance ablaze with wrath and disgust. “All right? No, they’re not, they’re as wrong as they can be. Here am I set down to work every morning like a wretched schoolboy. I swear, it’s damnable the way in which he treats me.”
“Oh, Hubert – hush!” cried his mother and sister in one breath, both horror-stricken.
“Hush? Oh yes! Aren’t we horrified?” he said jeeringly. “Women are so very easily shocked, I know. Faugh?” and he flung himself from the room.
But it was not on his younger son’s account that General Dorrien had come down that morning “in a state of thundercloud,” as that graceless delinquent had facetiously put it; and to let the reader into the real cause, it will be necessary for him or her to assist in the discussion which took place previous to the unlucky Hubert being summoned to the library.
“I don’t really know what to think, much less what to Bay or do,” said the General. “You saw for yourself, Eleanor; you saw them together. Now, what do you make of it?”
“Well, I do think it’s too bad of Roland, and shows a great want of proper feeling on his part. After all these years he has been away he does not give us much of his society. He seems to be quite taken up with those – people,” answered Mrs Dorrien, though, to do her justice, she answered with some reserve. Her heart was cold towards her eldest son, and not one spark of love had she for him; all was lavished on the younger. Yet, she told herself, she hoped she had a conscience.
“You are right,” said the General decisively. “It shows a complete want of proper feeling. To be hanging about the public roads like that with the girl! Why, I believe he was about to – pah! It is disgraceful – disgusting and disgraceful, absolutely. Who are these Ingelows, by the way, Eleanor?”
“Oh, I’m sure I don’t know,” she answered loftily, as if the bare suspicion of her knowing anything about them was an imputation to be resented. “I believe they are well-connected and all that. But that anything serious should be the outcome of this would be most deplorable, I should think.”
“It would, indeed. Highly deplorable, and in fact I won’t entertain the idea of anything of the kind. Moreover, if what I hear is true, Roland spends a very great deal of his time in the society of this girl.”
By which remark it will appear that the town of Wandsborough was in no way behind its provincial contemporaries in its passion for gossip.
“He may be only amusing himself. There may be nothing serious in it, after all,” hazarded Mrs Dorrien, her conscience prompting her to try and urge a plea for the absent one. But she could not have struck upon a more unlucky chord.
“Amusing himself! Well, I am surprised at you, Eleanor,” cried the General, firing up. “Amusing himself? And do you remember what came of it on the last occasion of his similarly ‘amusing himself’? Disgrace – pure and simple. Is that a prospect to contemplate with ordinary coolness, I ask you?”
“It strikes me forcibly that this young woman is well able to take care of herself,” was the acid reply. “And I don’t see what we – what you can do in the matter. Roland is different now and, I fear, terribly difficult to deal with.”
“As to what I can do – well, never mind,” answered the General very grimly. “But it seems to me that Roland has not left off his old ways – or, at any rate, is fast returning to them. Why, we shall have another action for breach of promise threatened before we know where we are; these professional people are keen upon the main chance, and that Jesuitical brood above any,” he continued, with a sneer. “And what I now say is that Roland had better be careful – for I will not be disgraced through him a second time with impunity. He has his own means, of course, but if he intends to take up his ultimate position in the county, let him show himself worthy of it.”
Very decisive and stern and uncompromising was the General’s tone and attitude as he concluded this last remark, and his wife, listening, was conscious of a warring tumult of feelings. Yet she dared not sacrifice right and justice to the cause of the one ruling passion of her life – her love for her younger son. So again she spoke in extenuation.
“It is a pity. But he will be going to Ardleigh Court next week – and there’s no telling what change in his fancy his stay there may effect.”
This time she touched the right spring. For she knew that her husband ardently desired a match between his eldest son and Clara Neville – a match that would bring about the union of the two fine old estates into one magnificent property. Hence he had “sounded” Roland on the subject, as we saw earlier in this narrative.
“There may be something in that,” was the mollified reply. “Clara can be exceedingly engaging when she likes, and I know Neville would be delighted. He seemed to take a great fancy to Roland.”
“I think he did.”
“And if only Roland would throw himself into his future interest here. He ought to live here and help to look after things, but he seems to prefer an idle life, and the society of those Rectory people to that of his own family,” said the General, relapsing again into ire over the thought.
“It is most unnatural of him, I must say, to dislike his home as he does,” assented Mrs Dorrien. Yet they forgot, did that worthy couple, how it would have been difficult indeed for anyone to feel any love for a home thus constituted.
“Well, it is useless discussing the matter further at present,” was the decisive rejoinder. “But mark my words. Never – never, I say – while I can prevent it, shall Roland bring into this house a daughter of that despicable popish renegade. So he can act as he thinks fit. My mind is made up.”
Chapter Fourteen.
“The Ban of Craunston.”
“Well, Miss Ingelow. All alone and wrapped in meditation! Hope I haven’t disturbed the solution of some knotty problem.”
“Oh, no, Mr Dorrien,” answered Margaret gaily, turning away from the window. “I haven’t been long back from evensong, and the only problem I was trying to solve was, what can have become of father. He ought to have been back by now. And it has set in wet, and he didn’t take an umbrella.”
“He will be sure to borrow one, I should think. But are your sisters out in the rain, too?”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer for that, they’re too far away,” said Margaret, with a laugh. “They went up to London yesterday, to stay with an aunt of ours.”
“Went up to London? I had no idea of that,” echoed Roland, with a momentary flash of surprise, strongly dashed with disappointment, crossing his face. “And do they make a long stay?”
“About a fortnight or three weeks. Ah – there is father!”
“Upon my word, Dorrien,” began the rector, as Roy unceremoniously pushed past him while entering, “I must again impress upon you the slur you cast upon my hospitable gates by leaving this chap outside the same. Now, Roy, old man, make yourself at home.”
“No fear of his not doing that,” laughed Roy’s master, as the dog deliberately curled himself up on the softest rug in the room. “But he was rather wet, so I thought he’d better wait outside.”
“Father, go at once and change your cassock,” interrupted Margaret. “It’s wet through.”
“Not a bit of it,” replied the rector, stooping to inspect his flowing skirt. “Brown lent me the very father of all ginghams. He buttonholed me in his dim, mysterious way, and said he hoped I wouldn’t be above, etc, etc. I told him I should be more than glad to be beneath it, and accordingly came along the street under full sail and a complete shelter. Brown is the prince of opportune and considerate vergers. And now, Dorrien, don’t hurry off. Stay and have a chop with us, and cheer an old man in his loneliness. My two youngest girls are away disporting themselves in the gay metropolis, so I can promise you a little less noise than usual. You’ve got your bicycle, I see, so you’re independent.”
Roland accepted with pleasure. He and the rector were great friends, and he was quite upon the “dropping in” footing by this time.
“Right. Margaret, take care of him for half an hour or so, during which period inexorable duty will keep your humble servant in his study chair.” And the rector left the room, humming a bar or two of the old plainsong hymn, whose melody lingered in his mind fresh from the dimly lighted choir at the close of the evening office.
If disappointment as to the absent was weighing upon Roland’s mind, he was unconsciously exemplifying the axiom as to a compensating element in all things. It was a few days after The Skegs exploration episode, and he had been making up his mind to take an opportunity of getting the rector to tell him the whole story of the legendary Ban, not that he believed in it himself, or was inclined to, but it would be interesting to hear the so-called facts. Here was just such an opportunity, as they would be alone together after dinner.
“You’ll have a wet ride back, Mr Dorrien, I’m afraid,” said Margaret, as they sat down to table. “It’s coming down harder than ever.”
“Oh, that’s nothing to some of my old privations,” he laughed, “except that the very snugness now will make it all the rougher to turn out.”
And snug it was. The drawn curtains only deadened the constant patter of the rain upon the windows, and the suggestion of the sort of evening outside thrown out by the sound, enhanced the sense of comfort and restfulness within. Under these circumstances, three people, sufficiently well known to each other to be able to converse without restraint, are in a position to pass a thoroughly pleasant evening. Yet to one, at any rate, of these three there was a sense of something wanting – a vacant place, perhaps, as of somebody absent, whose absence was really missed. Roy, the irrepressible, with his wonted off-handedness, was begging impartially from everybody in turn.
“Bother that post!” exclaimed the rector, as a sharp double knock cut across the conversation. “A man can’t dine in peace without this age of progress chucking its reprehensible invention into the flavour of his sirloin. Here we are – a whole stack of hopes and fears” – he went on, contemplating, with a whimsical expression, the sheaf of letters at that moment brought in. “First, diocesan – that’ll keep. Item – invitation to preach – ditto, ditto. That’s yours, Margaret – and – this is mine – from Olive. No, it’s for me, all for me,” he cried gleefully. “Not for you at all, Margaret, this time. Let’s see what she says. Excuse me, Dorrien – sink ceremony. By the way, I promised you a quiet dinner in the absence of those two chatterboxes, and one of them sends us two sheets of clatter by post – ha-ha!”
It was very pleasant to watch the affectionate delight with which the old man read through his favourite child’s letter.
“Why, they’re only going to stay ten days after all,” he cried in astonishment. “The child isn’t generally so eager to get back to her old dad, after the joys and glories of the metropolis. Here’s a message for you, Dorrien: ‘Tell Mr Dorrien, I saw a love of a dog the other day, that almost outshines Roy. Almost – not quite – mind you tell him almost or he’ll never speak to me again.’”
Roland, who had been inwardly startled at the juxtaposition of ideas, quickly recovered himself, and made some pleasant remark. Two things occurred to him. It might be that there was some reason underlying Olive’s anxiety to return speedily, and the message, innocent as it read, was to remind him that she did not forget him.
“Dad, Eustace is coming home next week,” remarked Margaret, looking up from a letter she had been reading.
“Is he? The rascal! it’s about time he did. Dorrien, you will have the dubious pleasure of making the acquaintance of my hopeful at the date just named. He has been away yachting with a friend, and by this time doubtless considers himself fully competent to take command of the Channel Fleet.”
Thus conversation flowed on, and at last Margaret rose. No, she would not be lonely, she said, in response to an intimation to that effect. She had more than enough to do to occupy all her time.
“Draw round the fire, Dorrien – fancy requiring one at this time of year,” said the rector, as the door closed upon his daughter. “Now to try and unearth some cigars,” diving into a chiffonier in the corner. “Ah! here we are. Light up. Oh, and we’ll put the decanters at the corner here, where we can reach them.”
Roland blew out a long puff of smoke, and lay back in easy content.
“I wish you’d tell me something, Dr Ingelow,” he said.
“And that?”
“Why, I want to know the true version of that ridiculous story attached to our family. You know – the ghost on The Skegs. You are sure to have it at your fingers’ ends.”
“Does not your father know it?”
“I believe he does, but he promptly shelves the topic if you moot it. And, you know, he isn’t the sort of man to get anything out of that he’s bent on keeping dark.”
“H’m! Well, the original version of the tradition is to be found in Surinn’s ‘Legends and Myths of Baronial Europe,’ a very scarce and bulky book, which came out between forty and fifty years ago, and the incident occurred, if I remember rightly, in the middle of the last century. The narrative is entitled ‘The Ban of Craunston.’ It was a wild and lawless period in out-of-the-way parts, and this corner of the world came in no wise behind the spirit of the age, for the coast was the happy hunting ground of wreckers and smugglers, and the roads of highwaymen and other freebooters. At that time, one Richard Dorrien was Squire of Cranston. He was a bachelor, and his younger brother lived at the Hall with him. The latter, Hubert by name, was an open-hearted, bright-spirited youngster, immensely popular with both sexes; whereas Richard, the Squire, seems to have been a gloomy, violent-tempered man, disliked and feared on all sides. Well, the brothers got on rather well together – possibly on account of the total dissimilarity of their characters – until the apple of discord was thrown into their midst in the shape of a young lady who came to take up her abode in Wandsborough, then a straggling little place, consisting of a score of houses. She was a foreigner – though of what nationality the chronicle omits to state – of extraordinary beauty, and lived alone with a duenna of regulation age and hideosity. It is said that this young woman was a Jacobite emissary, and it was in that capacity that she and Richard Dorrien became acquainted, for he was an ardent Jacobite, and over head and ears involved in the plots of the day. But be this as it may, it was a case of love at first sight. The churlish and misanthropical Squire became violently enslaved; unfortunately, however, the lady declined his addresses. More unfortunately still, she did not decline those of his brother – quite the reverse. Well, now, this position of affairs could but have one ending, in a state of society wherein men ran each other through on far less provocation than would induce you in these days to knock a fellow down. But there was no open quarrel. On the contrary, the Squire was so studiously cordial to his brother that the latter was thrown quite off his guard. Not so one or two of his intimates, who went so far as to warn him – and nearly got run through for their pains. Matters went on in this way till the day before Hubert was to wed the fair unknown. On the afternoon of that day the two brothers put off in their sailing cutter to tack about the bay. They were alone together, and seemed on the best of terms. The afternoon closed in squally and rough, and the boat and its occupants were lost to view in the mist. Darkness came on, and still the Dorriens did not return. The seafaring people at Minchkil began to get anxious, and talked of going in search, but there was a high sea running and every sign of a rising gale; moreover, they knew that the missing men were nearly as amphibious as they themselves. Then suddenly there sounded through the night the wild unearthly howling of a dog. Awed to the heart, it was some time before the superstitious seafarers could make up their minds to investigate further. The sound came from the cliff above them to westward, and thither at last they all proceeded. There, at the very extremity of the headland which looks down on The Skegs, stood a huge boar-hound, which they recognised as the Squire’s favourite dog, Satan, a savage brute, of whom the whole neighbourhood stood in terror. The animal stood there on the brink of the cliff – his neck stretched out over the churning waves below – throwing out his long-drawn, deep-voiced bay into the misty darkness. Then the men knew that something had happened. And now mark this. At the very moment this discovery was made, Richard Dorrien appeared suddenly before the young foreign lady, dripping and soaked from head to foot, and told her, without the slightest warning, that her lover was drowned. She seemed turned to stone. She gazed at him for a moment with a wild stare, gasped out one word – ‘Murdered!’ – and, still fixing him with that glassy stare, fell prone to the floor in a swoon. He never saw her again.
