"It will only be for a little longer, Nell. Mother's brave darling!"
Dan's voice came roughly, to cover the lack of any response from the child.
"Hurry, Lou! Hurry! We'll follow."
Wholly unsuspicious, Lou rode on her way amid the shadows of the night. She had no least instinct to warn her that now, at last, she had lost everything her life had held dear. There was still the torture that had come when she had learned the baseness of her husband. But she could not guess the last evil that was upon her. So, she rode swiftly through the night. Always, even when they came into the road at Hoytsville, Dan rode a little in the rear. Lou looked back from time to time. She could see the outlines of man and horse. She could not see the form of her daughter; the bulk of the man hid even its shadow from her eyes. But the fact that she could not see caused no fear in her, and she rode swiftly, as contented as one may be when the sweetness of life has changed to abomination.
It was not till they came to the outskirts of the little city, through which the main line of the railroad ran, that Lou learned the truth. It was under the lights of the streets that she turned, and looked, and saw Dan McGrew close behind her—and saw that there was none clinging at his back. She stared disbelievingly. Then, a ghastly fear leaped within her.
"Nell!" she cried.
Her voice was strained and shrill, broken with dread. "Nell!" she repeated, in a tone muffled by terror. "Where is she?" She turned her horse sharply and reined it to Dan McGrew's side. Motionless, the two regarded each other through seconds that were as ages.
Finally, Dan McGrew spoke:
"She was torn away when we were swept under," he said; and his voice was very compassionate. "I did what I could. There was no way to save her. She only cried out once. She must have gone down immediately."
Lou sat rigid, gazing with eyes that widened and burned in flames under which the man before her cringed. And then, of a sudden, the fires of her gaze were quenched. It was as if a black flood rolled over her as well, and extinguished the very last sparks of her spirit. The lids slowly fluttered down to closing. Under the blue white of the arc-light, her face was that of a dead woman. The last blow of fate in that frightful day had overwhelmed her. She tottered in her saddle. Dan McGrew, watching fearfully this thing that had come to pass through his machinations, leaped, and stood, and caught the fainting woman as she fell.