Ewan was buckling the belt about his waist when the setting sun rose upon them, and all at once there came to him the Scripture that says, "Let not the sun go down on your wrath." If God's hand had appeared in the heavens, the effect on Ewan could not have been greater. Already his passion was more than half gone, and now it melted entirely away.
"Dan," he cried, and his voice was a sob, "Dan, I can not fight – right or wrong I can not," and he flung himself down, and the tears filled his eyes.
Then Dan, whose face was afire, laughed loud and bitterly. "Coward," he said, "coward and poltroon!"
At that word all the evil passion came back to Ewan and he leapt to his feet.
"That is enough," he said; "the belts – buckle them together."
Dan understood Ewan's purpose. At the next breath the belt about Dan's waist was buckled to the belt about the waist of Ewan, and the two men stood strapped together. Then they drew the daggers, and an awful struggle followed.
With breast to breast until their flesh all but touched, and with thighs entwined, they reeled and swayed, the right hand of each held up for thrust, the left for guard and parry. What Dan gained in strength Ewan made up in rage, and the fight was fierce and terrible, Dan still with his back to the cliff, Ewan still with his face to the sea.
At one instant Dan, by his great stature, had reached over Ewan's shoulder to thrust from behind, and at the next instant Ewan had wrenched his lithe body backward and had taken the blow in his lifted arm, which forthwith spouted blood above the wrist. In that encounter they reeled about, changing places, and Ewan's back was henceforward toward the cliff, and Dan fought with his face toward the sea.
It was a hideous and savage fight. The sun had gone down, the cleft in the heavens had closed again, once more the thin flakes of snow were falling, and the world had dropped back to its dark mood. A stormy petrel came up from the cliff and swirled above the men as they fought, and made its direful scream over them.
Up and down, to and fro, embracing closely, clutching, guarding, and meantime panting hoarsely, and drawing hard breath, the two men fought in their deadly hate. At last they had backed and swayed to within three yards of the cliff, and then Ewan, with the gasp of a drowning man, flung his weapon into the air, and Dan ripped his dagger's edge across the belts that bound them together, and at the next breath the belts were cut, and the two were divided, and Ewan, separated from Dan, and leaning heavily backward, was reeling, by force of his own weight, toward the cliff.
Then Dan stood as one transfixed with uplifted hand, and a deep groan came from his throat. Passion and pain were gone from him in that awful moment, and the world itself seemed to be blotted out. When he came to himself, he was standing on the cliff head alone.
The clock in the old church was striking. How the bell echoed on that lonely height! One – two – three – four – five. Five o'clock! Everything else was silent as death. The day was gone. The snow began to fall in thick, large flakes. It fell heavily on Dan's hot cheeks and bare neck. His heart seemed to stand still, and the very silence itself was awful. His terror stupefied him. "What have I done?" he asked himself. He could not think. He covered his eyes with his hands, and strode up and down the cliff head, up and down, up and down. Then in a bewildered state of semi-consciousness he looked out to sea, and there far off, a league away, he saw a black thing looming large against the darkening sky. He recognized that it was a sail, and then perceived that it was a lugger, and quite mechanically he tried to divide the mainmast and mizzen, the mainsail and yawlsail, and to note if the boat were fetching to leeward or beating down the Channel.
All at once sea and sky were blotted out, and he could not stand on his legs, but dropped to his knees, and great beads of perspiration rolled down his face and neck. He tried to call "Ewan! Ewan!" but he could not utter the least cry. His throat was parched; his tongue swelled and filled his mouth. His lips moved, but no words came from him. Then he rose to his feet, and the world flowed back upon him; the sea-fowl crying over his head, the shrillness of the wind in the snow-capped gorse, and the sea's hoarse voice swelling upward through the air, while its heavy, monotonous blow on the beach shook the earth beneath him. If anything else had appeared to Dan at that moment, he must have screamed with terror.
Quaking in every limb, he picked up his clothes and turned back toward the shore. He was so feeble that he could scarcely walk through the snow that now lay thick on the short grass. When he reached the mouth of the gully he did not turn into the shed, but went on over the pebbles of the creek. His bloodshot eyes, which almost started from their sockets, glanced eagerly from side to side. At last he saw the thing he sought, and now that it was under him, within reach of his hand, he dare hardly look upon it.
At the foot of a jagged crag that hung heavily over from the cliff the body of Ewan Mylrea lay dead and cold. There was no mark of violence upon it save a gash on the wrist of the left hand, and over the wound there was a clot of blood. The white face lay deep in the breast, as if the neck had been dislocated. There were no other outward marks of injury from the fall. The body was outstretched on its back, with one arm – the left arm – lying half over the forehead, and the other, the right arm, with the hand open and the listless fingers apart, thrown loosely aside.
Dan knelt beside the body, and his heart was benumbed like ice. He tried to pray, but no prayer would come, and he could not weep.
"Ewan! Ewan!" he cried at length, and his voice of agony rolled round the corpse like the soughing of the wind.
"Ewan! Ewan!" he cried again; but only the sea's voice broke the silence that followed. Then his head fell on the cold breast, and his arms covered the lifeless body, and he cried upon God to have mercy on him, and to lift up His hand against him and cut him off.
Presently he got on his feet, and scarcely knowing what he was doing, he lifted the body in his arms, with the head lying backward on his shoulder, and the white face looking up in its stony stare to the darkening heavens. As he did so his eyes were raised to the cliff, and there, clearly outlined over the black crags and against the somewhat lighter sky, he saw the figure of a man.
He toiled along toward the shed. He was so weak that he could scarce keep on his legs, and when he reached the little place at the mouth of the creek he was more dead than alive. He put the body to lie on the bed of straw on which he had himself slept and dreamed an hour before. Then all at once he felt a low sort of cunning coming over him, and he went back to the door and shut it, and drew the long wooden bolt into its iron hoop on the jamb.
He had hardly done so when he heard an impatient footstep on the shingle outside. In another instant the latch was lifted and the door pushed heavily. Then there was a knock. Dan made no answer, but stood very still and held his breath. There was another knock, and another. Then, in a low tremulous murmur there came the words:
"Where is he? God A'mighty! where is he?" It was Davy Fayle. Another knock, louder, and still no reply.
"Mastha Dan, Mastha Dan, they're coming; Mastha Dan, God A'mighty! – "
Davy was now tramping restlessly to and fro. Dan was trying to consider what it was best to do, whether to open to Davy and hear what he had to say, or to carry it off as if he were not within, when another foot sounded on the shingle and cut short his meditations.
"Have you seen Mr. Ewan – Parson Ewan?"
Dan recognized the voice. It was the voice of Jarvis Kerruish.
Davy did not answer immediately.
"Have you seen him, eh?"
"No, sir," Davy faltered.
"Then why didn't you say so at once? It is very strange. The people said he was walking toward the creek. There's no way out in this direction, is there?"
"Way out – this direction? Yes, sir," Davy stammered.
"How? show me the way."
"By the sea, sir."
"The sea! Simpleton, what are you doing here?"
"Waiting for the boat, sir."
"What shed is this?"
Dan could hear that at this question Davy was in a fever of excitement.
"Only a place for bits of net and cable, and all to that," said Davy, eagerly.
Dan could feel that Jarvis had stepped up to the shed, and that he was trying to look in through the little window.
"Do you keep a fire to warm your nets and cables?" he asked in a suspicious tone.
At the next moment he was trying to force the door. Dan stood behind. The bolt creaked in the hasp. If the hasp should give way, he and Jarvis would stand face to face.
"Strange – there's something strange about all this," said the man outside. "I heard a scream as I came over the Head. Did you hear anything?"
"I tell you I heard nothing," said Davy, sullenly.
Dan grew dizzy, and groping for something to cling to, his hand scraped across the door.
"Wait! I could have sworn I heard something move inside. Who keeps the key of this shed?"
"Kay? There's never a kay at the like of it."
"Then how is it fastened? From within? Wait – let me see."
There was a sound like the brushing of a hand over the outside face of the door.
"Has the snow stopped up the keyhole, or is there no such thing? Or is the door fastened by a padlock?"
Dan had regained his self-possession by this time. He felt an impulse to throw the door open. He groped at his waist for the dagger, but belt and dagger were both gone.
"All this is very strange," said Jarvis, and then he seemed to turn from the door and move away.
"Stop. Where is the man Dan – the captain?" he asked, from a little distance.
"I dunno," said Davy, stoutly.
"That's a lie, my lad."
Then the man's footsteps went off in dull beats on the snow-clotted pebbles.
After a moment's silence there was a soft knocking; Davy had crept up to the door.
"Mastha Dan," he whispered, amid panting breath.
Dan did not stir. The latch was lifted in vain.
"Mastha Dan, Mastha Dan." The soft knocking continued.
Dan found his voice at last.
"Go away, Davy – go away," he said, hoarsely.
There was a short pause, and then there came from without an answer like a sob.
"I'm going, Mastha Dan."
After that all was silent as death. Half an hour later, Dan Mylrea was walking through the darkness toward Ballamona. In his blind misery he was going to Mona. The snow was not falling now, and in the lift of the storm the sky was lighter than it had been. As Dan passed the old church, he could just descry the clock. The snow lay thick on the face, and clogged the hands. The clock had stopped. It stood at five exactly.
The blind leading that is here of passion by accident is everywhere that great tragedies are done. It is not the evil in man's heart more than the deep perfidy of circumstance that brings him to crime.
CHAPTER XXI
THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT
However bleak the night, however dark the mood of the world might be, there was a room in Ballamona that was bright with one beautiful human flower in bloom. Mona was there – Mona of the quiet eyes and the silent ways and the little elfish head. It was Christmas Eve with her as with other people, and she was dressing the house in hibbin and hollin from a great mountain of both that Hommy-beg had piled up in the hall. She was looking very smart and happy that night in her short body of homespun turned in from neck to waist, showing a white habit-shirt and a white handkercheif crossed upon it; a quilted overskirt and linen apron that did not fall so low as to hide the open-work stockings and the sandal-shoes. Her room, too, was bright and sweet, with its glowing fire of peat and logs on the wide hearth, its lamp on the square oak table, and the oak settle drawn up between them.
In one corner of the settle, bubbling and babbling and spluttering and cooing amid a very crater of red baize cushions, was Mona's foster-child, Ewan's motherless daughter, lying on her back and fighting the air with clinched fists.
While Mona picked out the hibbin from the hollin, dissected both, made arches and crosses and crowns and rosettes, and then sprinkled flour to resemble snow on the red berries and the green leaves, she sung an old Manx ballad in snatches, or prattled to the little one in that half-articulate tongue that comes with the instinct of motherhood to every good woman that God ever makes.
I rede ye beware of the Carrasdoo men
As ye come up the wold;
I rede ye beware of the haunted glen —
But a fretful whimper would interrupt the singer.
"Hush, hush, Ailee darling – hush."
The whimper would be hushed, and again there would be a snatch of the ballad:
In Jorby curragh they dwell alone
By dark peat bogs, where the willows moan,
Down in a gloomy and lonely glen —
Once again the whimper would stop the song.
"Hush, darling; papa is coming to Ailee, yes; and Ailee will see papa, yes, and papa will see Ailee, yes, and Ailee – "
Then a long, low gurgle, a lovely head leaning over the back of the settle and dropping to the middle of the pillow like a lark to its nest in the grass, a long liquid kiss on the soft round baby legs, and then a perfect fit of baby laughter.
It was as pretty a picture as the world had in it on that bleak Christmas Eve. Whatever tumult might reign without, there within was a nest of peace.
Mona was expecting Ewan at Ballamona that night, and now she was waiting for his coming. It was true that when he was there three hours ago it was in something like anger that they had parted, but Mona recked nothing of that. She knew Ewan's impetuous temper no better than his conciliatory spirit. He would come to-night, as he had promised yesterday, and if there had been anger between them it would then be gone.
Twenty times she glanced at the little clock with the lion face and the pendulum like a dog's head that swung above the ingle. Many a time, with head aslant, with parted lips, and eyes alight, she cried "Hark!" to the little one when a footstep would sound in the hall But Ewan did not come, and meantime the child grew more and more fretful as her bedtime approached. At length Mona undressed her and carried her off to her crib in the room adjoining, and sang softly to her while she struggled hard with sleep under the oak hood with the ugly beasts carved on it, until sleep had conquered and all was silence and peace. Then, leaving a tallow dip burning on the table between the crib and the bed, lest perchance the little one should awake and cry from fear of the darkness, Mona went back to her sitting-room to finish off the last bunch of the hibbin and hollin.
The last bunch was a bit of prickly green, with a cluster of the reddest berries, and Mona hung it over a portrait of her brother, which was painted by a great artist from England when Ewan was a child. The Deemster had turned the portrait out of the dining-room after the painful interview at Bishop's Court about the loan and surety, and Mona had found it, face to the wall, in a lumber-room. She looked at it now with a new interest. When she hung the hollin over it she recognized for the first time a resemblance to the little Aileen whom she had just put to bed. How strange it seemed that Ewan had once been a child like Aileen!
Then she began to feel that Ewan was late in coming, and to make conjectures as to the cause of his delay. Her father's house was fast becoming a cheerless place to her. More than ever the Deemster was lost to her. Jarvis Kerruish, her stranger-brother, was her father's companion; and this seemed to draw her closer to Ewan for solace and cheer.
Then she sat on the settle to thread some loose berries that had fallen, and to think of Dan – the high-spirited, reckless, rollicking, headstrong, tender-hearted, thoughtless, brave, stubborn, daring, dear, dear Dan – Dan, who was very, very much to her in her great loneliness. Let other people rail at Dan if they would; he was wrapped up with too many of her fondest memories to allow of disloyalty like that. Dan would yet justify her belief in him. Oh, yes, he would yet be a great man, all the world would say it was so, and she would be very proud that he was her cousin – yes, her cousin, or perhaps, perhaps – . And then, without quite daring to follow up that delicious train of thought, even in her secret heart, though none might look there and say if it was unmaidenly, Mona came back to the old Manx ballad, and sang to herself another verse of it:
"Who has not heard of Adair, the youth?
Who does not know that his soul was truth?
Woe is me! how smoothly they speak,
And Adair was brave, and a man, but weak."
All at once her hand went up to her forehead, and the words of the old song seemed to have a new significance. Hardly had her voice stopped and her last soft note ceased to ring in the quiet room, when she thought she heard her own name called twice – "Mona! Mona!"
The voice was Ewan's voice, and it seemed to come from her bedroom. She rose from the settle, and went into her room. There was no one there save the child. The little one was disturbed in her sleep at the moment, and was twisting restlessly, making a faint cry. It was very strange. The voice had been Ewan's voice, and it had been deep and tremulous, as the voice of one in trouble.
Presently the child settled itself to sleep, all was silent as before, and Mona went back to the sitting-room. Scarcely was she seated afresh when she heard the voice again, and it again called her twice by name, "Mona! Mona!" in the same tremulous tone, but very clear and distinct.
Then tremblingly Mona rose once more and went into her room, for thence the voice seemed to come. No one was there. The candle burned fitfully, and suddenly the child cried in its sleep – that strange night-cry that freezes the blood of one who is awake to hear it. It was very, very strange.
Feeling faint, hardly able to keep on her feet, Mona went back to the sitting-room and opened the door that led into the hall. No one seemed to be stirring. The door of her father's study opposite was closed, and there was talking – the animated talking of two persons – within.
Mona turned back, closed her door quietly, and then, summoning all her courage, she walked to the window and drew the heavy curtains aside. The hoops from which they hung rattled noisily over the pole. Putting her face close to the glass, and shading her eyes from the light of the lamp behind her, she looked out. She saw that the snow had fallen since the lamp had been lit at dusk. There was snow on the ground, and thin snow on the leafless boughs of the trees. She could see nothing else. She even pushed up the sash, and called:
"Who is there?"
But there came no answer. The wind moaned about the house, and the sea rumbled in the distance. She pulled the sash down again.
Then, leaving the curtain back, she turned again into the room, and partly to divert her mind from the mysterious apprehensions that had seized it, she sat down at the little harpsichord that stood on the farther side of the ingle against the wall that ran at right angles from the window.
At first her fingers ran nervously over the keys, but they gained force as she went on, and the volume of sound seemed to dissipate her fears.
"It is nothing," she thought. "I have been troubled about what Ewan said to-day, and I'm nervous – that is all."
And as she played her eyes looked not at the finger-board, but across her shoulder toward the bare window. Then suddenly there came to her a sensation that made her flesh creep. It was as if from the darkness outside there were eyes which she could not see looking steadily in upon her where she sat.
Her blood rushed to her head, she felt dizzy, the playing ceased, and she clung by one hand to the candle-rest of the harpsichord. Then once more she distinctly heard the same deep, tremulous voice call her by her name – "Mona! Mona!"
Faint and all but reeling, she rose again, and again made her way to the bedroom. As before, the child was restless in her sleep. It seemed as if all the air were charged. Mona had almost fallen from fright, when all at once she heard a sound that she could not mistake, and instantly she recovered some self-possession.
It was the sound of the window of her sitting-room being thrown open from without. She ran back, and saw Dan Mylrea climbing into the room.
"Dan!" she cried.
"Mona."
"Did you call?"
"When?"
"Now – a little while ago?"
"No."
A great trembling shook Dan's whole frame. Mona perceived it, and a sensation of disaster not yet attained to the clearness of an idea took hold of her.
"Where is Ewan?" she said.
He tried to avoid her gaze. "Why do you ask for him?" said Dan, in a faltering voice.
"Where is he?" she asked again.
He grew dizzy, and laid hold of the settle for support. The question she asked was that which he had come to answer, but his tongue clave to his mouth.
Very pale and almost rigid from the heaviness of a great fear which she felt but could not understand, she watched him when he reeled like a drunken man.
"He has called me three times. Where is he? He was to be here to-night," she said.
"Ewan will not come to-night," he answered, scarcely audibly; "not to-night, Mona, or to-morrow – or ever – no, he will never come again."
The horrible apprehension that had taken hold of her leaped to the significance of his words, and, almost before he had spoken, a cry burst from her.
"Ewan is dead – he is dead; Mona, our Ewan, he is dead," he faltered.
She dropped to the settle, and cried, in the excess of her first despair, "Ewan, Ewan! to think that I shall see him no more!" and then she wept. All the time Dan stood over her, leaning heavily to bear himself up, trembling visibly, and with a look of great agony fixed upon her, as if he had not the strength to turn his eyes away.
"Yes, yes, our Ewan is dead," he repeated in a murmur that came up from his heart. "The truest friend, the fondest brother, the whitest soul, the dearest, bravest, purest, noblest – O God! O God! dead, dead! Worse, a hundredfold worse – Mona, he is murdered."
At that she raised herself up, and a bewildered look was in her eyes.
"Murdered? No, that is not possible. He was beloved by all. There is no one who would kill him – there is no one alive with a heart so black."
"Yes, Mona, but there is," he said; "there is one man with a heart so black."
"Who is he?"
"Who! He is the foulest creature on God's earth. Oh, God in heaven! why was he born?"
"Who is he?"
He bowed his head where he stood before her and beads of sweat started from his brow.
"Cursed be the hour when that man was born!" he said in an awful whisper.
Then Mona's despair came upon her like a torrent, and she wept long. In the bitterness of her heart she cried:
"Cursed indeed, cursed forever! Dan, Dan, you must kill him – you must kill that man!"
But at the sound of that word from her own lips the spirit of revenge left her on the instant, and she cried, "No, no, not that." Then she went down on her knees and made a short and piteous prayer for forgiveness for her thought. "O Father," she prayed, "forgive me. I did not know what I said. But Ewan is dead! O Father, our dear Ewan is murdered. Some black-hearted man has killed him. Vengeance is Thine. Yes, I know that. O Father, forgive me. But to think that Ewan is gone forever, and that base soul lives on. Vengeance is Thine; but, O Father, let thy vengeance fall upon him. If it is Thy will, let Thy hand be on him. Follow him, Father; follow him with Thy vengeance – "
She had flung herself on her knees by the settle, her upturned eyes wide open, and her two trembling hands held above her head. Dan stood beside her, and as she prayed a deep groan came up from his heart, his breast swelled, and his throat seemed to choke. At last he clutched her by the shoulders and interrupted her prayer, and cried, "Mona, Mona, what are you saying – what are you saying? Stop, stop!"
She rose to her feet. "I have done wrong," she said, more quietly. "He is in God's hands. Yes, it is for God to punish him."
Then Dan said, in a heart-rending voice:
"Mona, he did not mean to kill Ewan – they fought – it was all in the heat of blood."
Once more he tried to avoid her gaze, and once more, pale and immovable, she watched his face.
"Who is he?" she asked, with an awful calmness.
"Mona, turn your face away from me, and I will tell you," he said.
Then everything swam about her, and her pale lips grew ashy.
"Don't you know?" he asked in a whisper.
She did not turn her face, and he was compelled to look at her now. His glaring eyes were fixed upon her.
"Don't you know?" he whispered again, and then, in a scarcely audible voice, he said, "It was I, Mona."
At that she grew cold with horror. Her features became changed beyond recognition. She recoiled from him, stretched her trembling hands before her as if to keep him off.
"Oh, horror! Do not touch me!" she cried, faintly, through the breath that came so hard.
"Do not spare me, Mona," he said in a great sob. "Do not spare me. You do right not to spare me. I have stained my hands with your blood."
Then she sank to the settle, and held her head, while he stood by her and told her all – all the bitter, blundering truth – and bit by bit she grasped the tangled tale, and realized the blind passion and pain that had brought them to such a pass, and saw her own unwitting share in it.
And he on his part saw the product of his headstrong wrath, and the pitiful grounds for it, so small and so absurd as such grounds oftenest are. And together these shipwrecked voyagers on the waters of life sat and wept, and wondered what evil could be in hell itself if man in his blindness could find the world so full of it.
And Dan cursed himself and said:
"Oh, the madness of thinking that if either were gone the other could ever again know one hour's happiness with you, Mona. Ay, though the crime lay hidden, yet would it wither and blast every hour. And now, behold, at the first moment, I am bringing my burden of sin, too heavy for myself, to you. I am a coward – yes, I am a coward. You will turn your back upon me, Mona, and then I shall be alone."
She looked at him with infinite compassion, and her heart surged within her as she listened to his voice of great agony.
"Ah me! and I asked God to curse you," she said. "Oh, how wicked that prayer was! Will God hear it? Merciful Father, do not hear it. I did not know what I said. I am a blind, ignorant creature, but Thou seest and knowest best. Pity him, and forgive him. Oh, no, God will not hear my wicked prayer."
Thus in fitful outbursts she talked and prayed. It was as if a tempest had torn up every tie of her soul. Dan listened, and he looked at her with swimming eyes.
"And do you pray for me, Mona?" he said.
"Who will pray for you if I do not? In all the world there will not be one left to speak kindly of you if I speak ill. Oh, Dan, it will become known, and every one will be against you."
"And can you think well of him who killed your brother?"
"But you are in such sorrow; you are so miserable."
Then Dan's great frame shook wofully, and he cried in his pain – "Mercy, mercy, have mercy! What have I lost? What love have I lost?"
At that Mona's weeping ceased; she looked at Dan through her lashes, still wet, and said in another tone:
"Dan, do not think me unmaidenly. If you had done well, if you had realized my hopes of you, if you had grown to be the good and great man I longed to see you, then, though I might have yearned for you, I would rather have died with my secret than speak of it. But now, now that all this is not so, now that it is a lost faith, now that by God's will you are to be abased before the whole world – oh, do not think me unmaidenly, now I tell you, Dan, that I love you, and have always loved you."
"Mona!" he cried, in a low, passionate tone, and took one step toward her and held out his hands. There was an unspeakable language in her face.
"Yes; and that where you go I must go also, though it were to disgrace and shame – "
She had turned toward him lovingly, yearningly, with heaving breast. With a great cry he flung his arms about her, and the world of pain and sorrow was for that instant blotted out.
But all the bitter flood came rushing back upon them. He put her from him with a strong shudder.
"We are clasping hands over a tomb, Mona. Our love is known too late. We are mariners cast on a rock within a cable's length of harbor, but cut off from it by a cruel sea that may never be passed. We are hopeless within sight of hope. Our love is known in vain. It is a vision of what might have been in the days that are lost forever. We can never clasp hands, for, O God! a cold hand is between us, and lies in the hand of both."
Then again she fell to weeping, but suddenly she arose as if struck by a sudden idea.
"You will be taken," she said; "how can I have forgotten it so long? You must fly from the island. You must get away to-night. To-morrow all will be discovered."
"I will not leave the island," said Dan, firmly. "Can you drive me from you?" he said, with a suppliant look. "Yes, you do well to drive me away."
"My love, I do not drive you from me. I would have you here forever. But you will be taken. Quick, the world is wide."
"There is no world for me save here, Mona. To go from you now is to go forever, and I would rather die by my own hand than face such banishment."
"No, no, not that; never, never that. That would imperil your soul, and then we should be divided forever."
"It is so already, Mona," said Dan, with solemnity. "We are divided forever – as the blessed are divided from the damned."
"Don't say that, don't say that."
"Yes, Mona," he said, with a fearful calmness, "we have thought of my crime as against Ewan, as against you, myself, the world, and its law. But it is a crime against God also, and surely it is the unpardonable sin."
"Don't say that, Dan. There is one great anchor of hope."