"Poor dear father will be so horribly frightened. Roland, how soon can we go to him?" she asked faintly. He made no reply at first. The question had called back his thoughts to the hard world again, to such as he more pitiless than the billows from which they had miraculously escaped, colder than the chill wind which whistled through the great dark vault. The exile's soul was bitter within him again. They two had gone down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death together, and had emerged thence, only to be parted once more. "It will not be safe to go from here--until they find us," he replied. "But only think of the relief your father will experience when he finds you are safe! Why, it'll be worth while going through the suspense he is in at the present moment. While I--" He checked himself. No words could depict the awful desperation which lay upon this man's soul at that dark hour. All his hopes in this life were dead--his very life itself was forfeited, could be claimed at any moment--and in the next he had little, if any, belief--certainly no hope. Why had the sea spared him, why had it not taken them both together, or, at any rate, him? Why was he not lying at rest for ever far beneath the tossing billows--beyond the reach of the storms and whirlwinds of this wretched life? Was he spared to eke out an accursed existence? Could there be any truth in the old story of Cain? He remembered it as one of the sacred teachings which had been instilled into his infantile mind with all the accompaniments of rod and task-room and unbending severity, and which he had since scouted, in common with other like stories, as a mere childish legend. "A wanderer on the face of the earth." Ah, but then his sentence had begun before he had earned it. The curse of Cain had been upon him before he had committed Cain's crime. And why had the temptation and opportunity been so thrust upon him? He had gone out that fatal night perfectly devoid of harmful intent--not so much as a thought of it, indeed, had entered his head. He had returned a murderer. Then a horrid thought came over him. What if the purpose for which he had been brought to this spot was not, after all, accomplished? What might not the terrible sea yield up? That face with its look of awful despair, upon which he had so pitilessly gazed in the wan moonlight, as it sank into the black abyss--how could he bear its unearthly look now, should it suddenly appear before him with glassy, upbraiding eyes, and features hideous from the effects of its long immersion? Even as this thought struck him he descried something floating in the water-- something long and dark, like a human form. Great God--it was terrible! A cold perspiration broke out all over him as, with a dilated stare, he watched the awful object. What could it be, swaying helplessly backwards and forwards on the ebbing surge? Then it disappeared.