“Don’t, you hurt her,” Godfrey said, softly, as he picked up the ring and turned it over in his hand, while a perception of the truth began to dawn upon him.
“What did you say?” he asked; and Alice replied:
“I told you you were free to love your Gertie all you please, and I meant it, too, for I hate you.”
“Thank you, Alice; thank you so much, only it has come too late,” Godfrey replied; and slipping the ring upon Gertie’s cold finger, he continued, “See, it fits; and I’d rather have it there on her dead hand than on the hand of any other woman living, but it is there too late.”
Was he going crazy because of that pale girl lying there in a state so near resembling death, that it was not strange for the eye of love to be mistaken? Alice did not know; but something in his voice and manner roused the little womanly sympathy she had remaining in her then, and she said to him sharply: “I tell you she is not dead. It is only a faint, but she ought to have care. Take her somewhere, can’t you? or let these men do it for you;” and she turned to the boatmen who had saved her own and Julia’s life, and who had now come up with offers of assistance.
“She must be seen to; she’s in a swound,” they said, pointing to Gertie. “Shall we carry her to the town?”
But Godfrey would not let them touch her, and buoyed up with hope which gave him strength, he gathered the limp form in his arms and ran rather than walked toward the village.
Our house stands at the entrance of the town just on the brow of the hill, and as the storm was over I had opened the door to let in the cool, sweet air, when I saw the strange procession coming,—Godfrey with something in his arms, which I at first mistook for a child, so small it looked and so closely he held it to him; Alice following after, more like a mermaid in appearance than the ruffled and fluted and furbelowed young lady whom I was wont to see, and the two boatmen bringing up the rear with Godfrey’s hat and Alice’s parasol.
“What is it, Godfrey?” I asked, as I went out to meet him, and when I saw what it was, I bade him bring her in at once, for there was no time to lose.
He laid her on my bed, and then, while one of the men went for the doctor, we did for her all we had heard must be done for the drowning, and with such good result, that when the doctor came the patient had already shown signs of returning consciousness, and the breath was plainly perceptible through the pale lips whose first word was, “Godfrey, save me!”