All this added to Stratton's depression, and the sense of coming trouble. It was impossible to pass it over as imaginary, face to face as he was with the terrible difficulties before him; for in that tiny place, unless Barron was hurried away, a meeting was imminent, and it was his doing--his. Guest laughed at the idea of his presence there being due to fate, he recalled; but how else could he think of the strange complication but as being wrought out by a greater directing hand? "And for what?" he muttered. Could it be only to inflict fresh torture upon a gentle, loving woman? The mental outlook was as black and misty as that across the sands to the moaning, sighing sea; and as Stratton sat there, with the damp, soft air cooling his brow, he longed for rest, and thought of the peace and gentle calm that he might find if he could take a boat and sail right away into the soft, black darkness. He shook his head mournfully, though, for he knew that he could not sail away from his thoughts, and that it would be the act of a coward to try and escape from the sufferings which fell to his lot. To sleep was impossible. He did not even think of lying down, but sat there waiting for the first streaks of day with the face of Myra always before him, her eyes looking gravely into his with a sweet, trustful tenderness, which made him recall her visit to his chambers that night when she knelt before him with her arms outstretched to take him to her breast, and he asked himself why he had shrunk from her--why he had not crushed down conscience, and the horror of his having slain her husband, and taken her away--anywhere so that they two could have been together far from the world and its ways. For his dread had been his own making. It was not real. The shot was an accident, not even dealt by his own hand, and the man had lived. Myra would have been his, and they might have been happy. Was it too late, even now? If he could only reach her ear and tell her how all stood. She loved him--he knew that. Once with Myra meant till death, and she would follow him to the world's end. "And I sit here," he cried, and started from his seat, "when she is there yonder waiting for me. A word would rouse her from her sleep, if she does sleep. She may be sitting at her window even now, wakeful and wretched as I, and ready to trust me, to let me lead her far away from all this misery and despair. Heaven never could mean us to suffer as we do. It is a natural prompting. She must be waiting for me now." The moments of exaltation passed, and he sank down again to bury his face in his hands, knowing that it was all the madness of a despairing man. No; he could do nothing but that which he and Brettison had planned-- nothing but wait for the morning, which was yet hours away.