"I will accompany you," said Sibyl; "we may both be needed to give testimony."
Half an hour later, the boat, containing Carl, Mrs. Tom, and Sibyl, was dancing over the water in the direction of N——, to electrify the community by the announcement of the atrocious deed.
But where, meantime was Christie? Had she really, as they so readily supposed, found a grave beneath the wild waves?
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHRISTIE.
"Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, 'It might have been.'
God pity them both! and pity us all
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall,
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these, 'It might have been.'"—WHITTIER.
With the cold rain falling in her face, the colder wind fanning her brow, Christie awoke from that deep swoon that had been mistaken for death.
She opened her eyes, and gazed vacantly around, but all was dark as Erebus. There was a roaring sound, as of many waters, in her ears—a vague, dull sense of some awful calamity, a heavy, suffocating feeling in her chest, a misty consciousness of some one supporting her head. Dark and dreary was the night around, but darker and drearier lay the heart in her bosom. Memory made a faint effort to regain its power, to recall some dreadful woe that pressed like leaden weights on her bosom, but in vain. Only that dull aching at her heart, only some past unutterable sorrow—that was all.
Bodily as well as mentally every faculty was prostrated. She made an effort to speak, to ask what had happened, to know where she was; but her lips moved in vain, no word came forth. She strove to rise, but at the first faint motion a sudden pang, like a dagger-thrust, pierced her breast, and she fell back in a deadly swoon once more.
When next she woke to consciousness she found herself lying in a bed, with the bright sunshine shining in broad patches on the floor. Memory had not yet resumed its throne, and of that last dreadful night she was mercifully prevented from recalling anything. She strove in vain to collect her thoughts; nothing could be remembered, only that strange aching—that vague, unspeakable pang that lay on her heart still.