a break-up.
“in a moment, mr. featherstone was standing on the rock.”
Pacing up and down the river bank in a terrible excitement, or sitting in some solitary place with his eyes staring vacantly, or with head buried in his trembling hands, through which the tears would trickle, a man might have been seen haunting the neighborhood of Blackrock. It was Mr. Morton, so altered that those who knew him best almost failed to recognize in him the same man.
Let us not inquire too narrowly into the causes of this remarkable change.
It was not until all hope with regard to the recovery of Digby’s body was abandoned, that it was so strikingly apparent. At first there was the rebellious cry from his heart, “It cannot be true; it shall not be true,” and then a gentler and more subdued frame of mind ensued, as he prayed, “Oh that it may not be true,” until at length it was useless to hope against hope, and the strong man bowed down his broken heart, as he said, “O God! it is true.”
And what of Ethel?
It was her first loss, poor child, and her first contact with a great appalling sorrow. She was perplexed and stunned with the dreadful blow. She seemed utterly alone now; whether or not she really could have relied on Digby in the past for advice and guidance, does not matter—she felt she could, and now this source of reliance had gone. Her father was changed, so changed that he seemed almost a stranger, and now in this crisis of her need she felt that he could yield neither help nor sympathy to her, while she was impotent to minister to him.
It was well for Ethel that at the time of her sad visit to Blackrock, Madeleine Greenwood was there, for in her she found a companion of her own age, and a comforter as well as friend.