How long a time passed thus I cannot tell, for I could not see the face of my watch. Every two or three minutes I still called forlornly for aid, though I felt the effort to be almost useless.
After what must have been a considerable while, I tried to change my position. In so doing, I put out one hand, perhaps a foot off,—not on the bank, as I expected, for it splashed into water.
Then—the pool was rising!
At once I understood. The woman had explained to me how these waters did rise in heavy rain, slowly mounting up and up, towards the mouth of the hole, curdling fiercely round like water in a saucepan vehemently stirred, and finally "boiling" over on the grass outside.
I think I must have been getting at last a little stupefied with pain and cold; for I kept picturing this to myself, in a dreamy fashion, wondering if the waters would carry me up as they rose, and would whirl me round in eddying circles, till finally I was cast out upon the grassy slope.
Or I might instead be sucked downwards, drawn into the quiet river below, carried through dark underground passages, and perhaps, a mile or two farther on, be washed out through holes into light of day, just where the hidden river bubbles up once more upon its stony bed, as I had seen it when driving past in the dog-cart.
Maggie would be the one to be pitied,—poor Maggie! I felt such intense compassion for her. I thought of Eustace, and of Keith's death. It did seem strange, if something akin to that were to happen again in the family. Not the same, yet so far alike that Maggie would certainly be blamed for my death. People would say, "How terrible for Maggie! Such a result from one little bout of girlish temper and silliness!" But would that be true? Was it not rather the end of a long downsliding on Maggie's part: a persistent yielding to ill temper and perversity?
I think I wanted to live most of all for Maggie's sake. It seemed to me that my death just then would throw such a shadow over her life.
Of Miss Millington I thought little, and this now seems to me singular. Maggie's face haunted me. I kept seeing the rounded peach-bloom cheeks, and the sweet half-shy grey eyes, just as I had seen them when she stepped forward to speak to Arthur Lenox. And, strange to say, the face grew more dear, just because he had looked upon it admiringly.
Until those lonely hours in Gurglepool hollow, I never dreamt how I loved Maggie, despite all her coldness. I can recall saying, with quite a gleam of joy, "If I get through this, I shall be able now to write to my friend as she wishes, about her darling."