Jack, the terrier—that dog which had such amazing facility for getting into canine troubles—sprang in, and yapping and yelping laid that something at the feet of his mistress, who recognised at once her sister's garden-hat; and a low cry of despair escaped Mary as she turned it over in her trembling hands, and painfully and vividly it brought before her the face, figure, and whole individuality of the lost one.
A torrent of tears escaped Mrs. Deroubigne, but Mary seemed to have lost the power to shed one.
Even as the angry waves came rolling into the creek, so did wave after wave of sorrow seem to be coming upon her again, dark and sharp as ever.
'Oh, Lord—how long—how long!' she wailed in her heart.
She stretched out her hands as if clutching the air for support, she swayed a little, and then, her strength failing her, she would have fallen on her pallid face had not Mrs. Deroubigne caught her fast in her motherly arms.
Night drew on and day came again without a trace of the lost one, dead or alive.
Baron Rolandsburg, who was appalled by a catastrophe so sudden and unforeseen, corroborated the story that she had gone on the stretch of dry sand to sketch, and no doubt remained till the sudden tide had overtaken and overwhelmed her!
He now made himself invaluable in his exertions for intelligence. Rewards were offered to boatmen and river-pilots, and in the Hamburger Nachrichten and other journals 'for her remains' (how horrible did this sound), but unknown to Mary, who was for several days and nights all but unconscious. He also put himself into communication with their Herrshaften (their Excellencies) the four Burgomasters and four Syndics, and the Gendermerie, but all in vain.
Other traces of Ellinor than those which the hungry waves had washed to Mary's feet were never found!
The latter was now a prey to two emotions, when a time came that she could consider calmly. One was an intense longing to get away from Altona as a place which had now become hateful to her, as the scene of so much sadness; and the other was an affectionate repugnance to leave it, until her sister's fate was made certain, and her remains found.