A presentiment of evil—an emotion that she could not have explained—came over Mary's mind. Vainly she sought to settle her thoughts to some fixity of purpose. A vague terror seized her, and she could scarcely even think.
She remembered when Ellinor was ill how the tolling of the Passing Bell in the adjacent church appalled her with the dread that she was about to lose her—her only relation in the world; and had she lost her now?
'Was she going far to sketch?' Mrs. Deroubigne suddenly inquired of her now scared domestics.
'No, madame! Only to the sands beside the river, when the tide was out.'
'The tide!' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne; and, accompanied by Mary, she rushed to the foot of the garden, to find the creek full and the Elbe at flood tide and more.
'My God—oh, what can have happened?' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne, who was aware of a periodical event of which Mary knew nothing.
It was this. When the wind is from the west, and especially if violent, the waters of the Elbe become swollen to such a degree that the canals of Hamburg overflow their banks, the cellars, magazines and all channels, become gorged and inundated—that, in fact, the tide suddenly rises, sometimes to the height of twenty feet, with a rapidity that is alike dangerous and terrible. So the gorged tide, swollen by the incoming waves of the German Sea, was rolling inshore now, and Ellinor had been on the sands—the temporary dry sands, to sketch!
A wild waste of water was rolling and boiling there now, and where was she?
'Ellinor—oh, Ellinor!' cried Mary, again and again, in a voice of agony; but, save the sough of the waves, there was no response.
Soaked to pulp her sketch-book was found at the foot of the creek washed inshore, and, if other evidence of a tragedy was wanting, something was seen floating in the oozy waves about ten yards distant.