There are moments when long restrained grief and anxiety break loose from the mortal fetters that bind them—they escape the chains, though in their flight they rend the soul and tear the heart. Such a moment came to Sana as she stood in the house of the dead, awaiting her turn to look at the body of the drowned man.
She freed herself from the supporting arm of Mrs. O’Brien and with a cry of anguish pushed her way to the body lying upon the rude slab.
Silently she gazed upon the form. The facial features were wholly unrecognizable and his curly hair, through which she had so often delightedly run her fingers now was matted with dried and clotted blood. The eye that had fascinated her—the lips that had so often sought hers—all these were hideously mutilated.
Sana sank to her knees and fell across the body, sobbing, “François, François come back—come back to me—your Sana—your joujou. O François, why did you leave me? I loved you so. Oh! look at me.”
And as she raved she peered with pitying intent into the sunken eyes of the lifeless man.
“Come, my child, we must be going,” burst upon the ears of the anguished girl, as she moaned and wrung her hands hysterically over the form of her dead love.
“Yes,” came from lips unconscious of the utterance.
“François, I must leave you—François, goodbye—goodb——”
With her farewell uncompleted Sana fell in a swoon at the feet of Professor Grant.
They carried her into the office, and after regaining consciousness she was led to the waiting automobile in which she was taken to Mrs. O’Brien’s home.