“Dear, carry me to the window.”
When this was done she suddenly leaned forward with shining eyes and anxious fingers. “My baby! My baby!” she said.
She looked up the river, but her eyes were fading, she could not see far. “It is all a grey light,” she said, “I cannot see well.” Yet she smiled. “Lay me down again, father,” she whispered.
After a little she sank into a slumber. All at once she started up. “The river, the beautiful river!” she cried out gently. Then, at the last, “Oh, my dear, my dear!”
And so she came out of the valley into the high hills. Later he was left alone with his dead. The young doctor and others had come and gone. He would watch till morning. He sat long beside her, numb to the world. At last he started, for he heard a low clear call behind the House. He went out quickly to the little platform, and saw through the dusk a man drawing himself up. It was Brydon. He caught the old man’s shoulders convulsively. “How is she?” he asked. “Come in, my son,” was the low reply. The old man saw a grief greater than his own. He led the husband to the room where the wife lay beautiful and still. “She is better, as you see,” he said bravely.
The hours went, and the two sat near the body, one on either side. They knew not what was going on in the world.
As they mourned, Pierre and the young doctor sat silent in that cottage on the hillside. They were roused at last. There came up to Pierre’s keen ears the sound of the river.
“Let us go out,” he said; “the river is flooding. You can hear the logs.”
They came out and watched. The river went swishing, swilling past, and the dull boom of the logs as they struck the piers of the bridge or some building on the shore came rolling to them.
“The dams and booms have burst!” Pierre said. He pointed to the camps far up the river. By the light of the camp-fires there appeared a wide weltering flood of logs and debris. Pierre’s eyes shifted to the Bridge House. In one room was a light. He stepped out and down, and the other followed. They had almost reached the shore, when Pierre cried out sharply: “What’s that?”