I'll tell Lucy that I was mad, and that you hate me; and you shall be clear of me forever.
No one can blame you, because I have behaved unpardonably to you."
Maggie was paralyzed; it was easier to resist Stephen's pleading than this picture he had called up of himself suffering while she was vindicated; easier even to turn away from his look of tenderness than from this look of angry misery, that seemed to place her in selfish isolation from him.
He had called up a state of feeling in which the reasons which had acted on her conscience seemed to be transmitted into mere self-regard.
The indignant fire in her eyes was quenched, and she began to look at him with timid distress.
She had reproached him for being hurried into irrevocable trespass,–she, who had been so weak herself.
"As if I shouldn't feel what happened to you–just the same," she said, with reproach of another kind,–the reproach of love, asking for more trust.
This yielding to the idea of Stephen's suffering was more fatal than the other yielding, because it was less distinguishable from that sense of others' claims which was the moral basis of her resistance.
He felt all the relenting in her look and tone; it was heaven opening again.
He moved to her side, and took her hand, leaning his elbow on the back of the boat, and saying nothing. He dreaded to utter another word, he dreaded to make another movement, that might provoke another reproach or denial from her.
Life hung on her consent; everything else was hopeless, confused, sickening misery.
They glided along in this way, both resting in that silence as in a haven, both dreading lest their feelings should be divided again,–till they became aware that the clouds had gathered, and that the slightest perceptible freshening of the breeze was growing and growing, so that the whole character of the day was altered.
"You will be chill, Maggie, in this thin dress.
Let me raise the cloak over your shoulders.
Get up an instant, dearest."
Maggie obeyed; there was an unspeakable charm in being told what to do, and having everything decided for her.
She sat down again covered with the cloak, and Stephen took to his oars again, making haste; for they must try to get to Torby as fast as they could.
Maggie was hardly conscious of having said or done anything decisive.
All yielding is attended with a less vivid consciousness than resistance; it is the partial sleep of thought; it is the submergence of our own personality by another.
Every influence tended to lull her into acquiescence. That dreamy gliding in the boat which had lasted for four hours, and had brought some weariness and exhaustion; the recoil of her fatigued sensations from the impracticable difficulty of getting out of the boat at this unknown distance from home, and walking for long miles,–all helped to bring her into more complete subjection to that strong, mysterious charm which made a last parting from Stephen seem the death of all joy, and made the thought of wounding him like the first touch of the torturing iron before which resolution shrank.
And then there was the present happiness of being with him, which was enough to absorb all her languid energy.
Presently Stephen observed a vessel coming after them.
Several vessels, among them the steamer to Mudport, had passed them with the early tide, but for the last hour they had seen none.
He looked more and more eagerly at this vessel, as if a new thought had come into his mind along with it, and then he looked at Maggie hesitatingly.
"Maggie, dearest," he said at last, "if this vessel should be going to Mudport, or to any convenient place on the coast northward, it would be our best plan to get them to take us on board.
You are fatigued, and it may soon rain; it may be a wretched business, getting to Torby in this boat.
It's only a trading vessel, but I dare say you can be made tolerably comfortable.
We'll take the cushions out of the boat.
It is really our best plan.
They'll be glad enough to take us. I've got plenty of money about me. I can pay them well."
Maggie's heart began to beat with reawakened alarm at this new proposition; but she was silent,–one course seemed as difficult as another.
Stephen hailed the vessel.
It was a Dutch vessel going to Mudport, the English mate informed him, and, if this wind held, would be there in less than two days.
"We had got out too far with our boat," said Stephen. "I was trying to make for Torby.
But I'm afraid of the weather; and this lady–my wife–will be exhausted with fatigue and hunger.
Take us on board–will you?–and haul up the boat.
I'll pay you well."
Maggie, now really faint and trembling with fear, was t aken on board, making an interesting object of contemplation to admiring Dutchmen.
The mate feared the lady would have a poor time of it on board, for they had no accommodation for such entirely unlooked-for passengers,–no private cabin larger than an old-fashioned church-pew.
But at least they had Dutch cleanliness, which makes all other inconveniences tolerable; and the boat cushions were spread into a couch for Maggie on the poop with all alacrity.
But to pace up and down the deck leaning on Stephen–being upheld by his strength–was the first change that she needed; then came food, and then quiet reclining on the cushions, with the sense that no new resolution could be taken that day.
Everything must wait till to-morrow.
Stephen sat beside her with her hand in his; they could only speak to each other in low tones; only look at each other now and then, for it would take a long while to dull the curiosity of the five men on board, and reduce these handsome young strangers to that minor degree of interest which belongs, in a sailor's regard, to all objects nearer than the horizon.
But Stephen was triumphantly happy.
Every other thought or care was thrown into unmarked perspective by the certainty that Maggie must be his.
The leap had been taken now; he had been tortured by scruples, he had fought fiercely with overmastering inclination, he had hesitated; but repentance was impossible.
He murmured forth in fragmentary sentences his happiness, his adoration, his tenderness, his belief that their life together must be heaven, that her presence with him would give rapture to every common day; that to satisfy her lightest wish was dearer to him than all other bliss; that everything was easy for her sake, except to part with her; and now they never would part; he would belong to her forever, and all that was his was hers,–had no value for him except as it was hers.
Such things, uttered in low, broken tones by the one voice that has first stirred the fibre of young passion, have only a feeble effect–on experienced minds at a distance from them.
To poor Maggie they were very near; they were like nectar held close to thirsty lips; there was, there must be, then, a life for mortals here below which was not hard and chill,–in which affection would no longer be self-sacrifice.
Stephen's passionate words made the vision of such a life more fully present to her than it had ever been before; and the vision for the time excluded all realities,–all except the returning sun-gleams which broke out on the waters as the evening approached, and mingled with the visionary sunlight of promised happiness; all except the hand that pressed hers, and the voice that spoke to her, and the eyes that looked at her with grave, unspeakable love.