And then the voice of Constance cleft the air, in a wild, terrifying scream. “John, John! Save Dorothy! She’s adrift on the water.”
Her piercing cry freighted with a mother’s anguish, at once filled all who heard it with consternation, in the midst of which Mrs. Harris exclaimed, “Dear me, how dreadful it all is!”
All turned in the direction of the cry and almost immediately Constance, in an agony of despair, and deathly white, frantically rushed among them.
She looked appealingly from one to the other, her heart in her throat and pathos in her voice. “I heard her cry, ‘Mama! Papa! Help! Save me!’ Oh, will no one rescue my darling?”
“I’m off,” said Sam, in his short, sententious way, and rushed toward the river.
The sudden strain on her nerves was greater than Constance could bear.
Naturally of a weak constitution, the ordeal was overpowering; the mother’s affection, forming a magnetic part of her heart, leapt out to her child and left her numb and cold almost unto death, and then her limbs trembled, and with Sam’s words ringing in her ears, down she sank, a senseless being.
Virginia’s consternation was complete. She rushed down the steps, knelt beside her prostrate form, thrust her arm lovingly under her head and sobbed: “Constance! Dear Constance! Don’t give way so. Dorothy will be found.”
CHAPTER III.
When Constance revived, she found herself in a quiet room remote from noise or intrusion, whither she had been tenderly carried. Virginia was with her, and with the aid of a professional nurse, who lived near by and was called in by Mrs. Harris, had been successful in restoring her to consciousness.