There was no hope in Clarissa's heart as she turned her steps homewards. Anthony had gone down—gone down with Admiral Kempenfeldt and his eight hundred. The same breeze that had scattered the rose-petals and played with her curls had a deadlier mission to perform. She remembered how she had stood rejoicing in that sudden gust of cool wind, and the thought turned her faint and sick as she reached her father's house.
"Clarissa," cried the captain, meeting her at the door, "what is all this? Surely it can't be true. Where's Anthony?"
Ay, where was Anthony? She threw her arms round the old man's neck, and hid her eyes upon his shoulder that she might not see his face.
"Father—dear father! He said he was going to see Lieutenant Holloway on board——"
She could not finish her sentence, and there was no need of more words. Captain Tillotson was a brave man; he had faced death many a time without flinching, but this was a blow which he was wholly unprepared to meet. Putting his daughter gently aside, he sat down on a sofa, and looked straight before him with that terrible blank look that tells its own tale of a stroke that has crushed out all strength. The servants, glancing from the father to the daughter, saw that on both faces this sudden sorrow had done the work of years. What was time? Was it months or minutes ago that the first cry had sounded through the street?
"If I had only kissed him!" Clarissa did not know that she was saying the words aloud. To her, indeed, this cup was doubly bitter, for it was mingled with the gall of remorse. But for that hard nature of hers, she might have had the sweetness of a kind parting to think upon. Had he forgiven her, in his loving heart, while the great ship was going down, and the water was taking away his life? Ah, she might never know that, until the cruel sea gave up its dead.
There was a noise of wheels in the street; but what were noises to her? The sound drew nearer; the wheels stopped at the door, but it could be only some friend, who had come in haste to tell them the bad news which they knew already.
Battered, and bruised, and dripping with water, a man descended from the hackney coach, and Clarissa started up.
The face was so pale, the whole aspect so strange, that she could not receive the great truth all at once. It was not until he entered the room, and knelt down, wet and trembling as he was, at his father's feet, that she realized her brother's safety.
Anthony had been on the upper deck when the ship sank, and was among that small number who escaped death. All those who were between decks shared the fate of the great Admiral who went down with his sword in its sheath, and ended his threescore years and ten of hard service, in sight of shore. The many were taken, the few left; but although hundreds of homes were made desolate that day, there were some from whence the strain of thanksgiving ascended, tempered by the national woe.