“Well, now, I do wonder what can keep David? He promised to be back before sunset, and he never broke a promise nor missed an appointment before,” she said, as she held one hand above her eyes and scanned the track of waters between the main shore and the little landing-place on the islet.
She watched until the sun held set, the faint after-glow had faded from the sky and sea, and the short winter twilight of the shortest days had darkened into night.
“Something has happened. I trust in the Lord it is nothing ill,” she said, as she left the window and went to the fireplace, and lighted the two home-dipped tallow candles that stood on the mantelpiece.
She did not pull down the blue window blind; she left it up, saying to herself:
“He shall see the light of home to cheer him across the dark sea, poor lad.”
She had scarcely said so much when the sound of hurrying footsteps smote her ears, and before she had time to cross the room, the door was violently pushed open, and David Lindsay strode into the house, bareheaded, with disordered hair, haggard face and starting eyes; wearing nothing but a wet and frozen shirt and trowsers, and bearing in his arms a girl’s lifeless form, wrapped closely in his own great-coat.
“Gloria is dead! She is dead! I saw her drowned before my eyes! I saw her drowned before I could reach her! My darling! My darling! My angel! Oh, my little angel!” he groaned, as he bore her to the bed, laid her on it and dropped on his knees, burying his head beside her.
“Father of mercies! how did it happen?” cried the old dame, clasping her hands in anguish, as she came up.
“Oh, don’t ask me now! Try to recover her, try! Oh, she must not! shall not die!” exclaimed the young man, starting like a maniac from his kneeling posture, and staring around him with a wild manner, half prayerful, half defiant, wholly insane.
“Yes, we must try! We must never give up,” quickly replied Dame Lindsay, who in her long life as a fisherman’s daughter, wife and mother, had had varied experience in drowned persons, resuscitated or buried.