And she, who had not trusted him when she _might_, will he care that she should trust him now when she _must_? Slowly he lifts the pale, slender hand, and very gently lets it fall by her side. His meaning is not to be misunderstood; he will none of her. Henceforth their paths shall lie as widely apart as they have lain (of _her own_ choice) for the past few months. "I repeat it," he says, quietly, letting his eyes rest for a moment upon hers, "it is _too late_!" And outside the wild winds, flying past with an even fiercer outbreak of wrath, seem to echo those fatal words, "Too late!" The very rain, being full of them, seeks to dash them against the window panes. A sudden roar of thunder resounding overhead comes as a fit adjunct to the despair embodied in them. All nature is awake, and the air seems full of its death-knells. Portia, sick at heart, moves silently away. CHAPTER XXVIII. "If you have tears, prepare to shed them now." --_Julius Caesar._ "Eyes, look your last; Arms, take your last embrace!" --_Romeo and Juliet._ THE night closes in, the rain has ceased, or only now and then declares itself in fitful bursts, but still the wind rages and the storm beats upon land and sea, as though half its fury is not yet expended. The clouds are scudding hurriedly toward the West, and now and then, as they separate, one catches a glimpse of a pale, dying moon trying to shine in the dark vaults above, her sickly gleam only rendering more terrible the aspect of the land below. Still the lightning comes and goes, and the thunder kills the sacred calm of night; Dulce and Julia, standing in the window, gaze fearfully towards the angry heavens, and speak to each other in whispers. Portia, who is sitting in an arm-chair, with her colorless face uplifted and her head thrown back, is quite silent, waiting with a kind of morbid longing for each returning flash. The very children are subdued, and, lying in a pretty group upon the hearth-rug, forget to laugh or play, or do anything save cry aloud, "Ah! wasn't _that_ a big one?" when the lightning comes, or, "That was the loudest one yet," when the deafening thunder rolls. The men are standing in another window, talking in low tones of Fabian's exculpation, when Fabian himself comes in, eagerly, excitedly, and so unlike the Fabian of old that Portia gazes at him in silent wonder. "There's a ship in sore trouble down there," he says, pointing as though he can see the sea down below, where now the angry surf is rolling in, mountains high, hoarsely roaring as it comes. "Brown from the coast-guard station has just run up to tell us of it. They are about to man the life-boat; who will come down to the beach with me?"