[CHAPTER XXIX.]
It was the work of moments after that.
There were strong, willing hands at the oars, and the tiny boat leaped the waves like a bird on its errand of mercy.
But even when Carlita had seen them drag Pierrepont, with his tiny burden, into the boat safely, even when she saw it approaching her again, valiantly struggling against the swiftly ebbing tide, she could not remove her strained, haggard eyes from it, could not loosen the clutch of her rigid fingers from the bosom of her gown just above her heart.
She did not seem to realize that he was safe until he stood upon the pier beside her in the moonlight, dripping wet, yet smiling happily while he deposited the half drowned child into the arms of his father, who had grown as hysterical as a woman, and turned to her.
She was looking up into his face, her own cold and gray as if frost had touched her very soul, and there was something in it that frightened him.
He forgot how wet he was, and before all those people he threw his arm around her and drew her to him.
"Carlita, darling!" he exclaimed, anxiously. "Are you frightened? See! We will neither of us be the worse for a little wetting."
"Thank God, you are safe!" she cried, and then—her face was hidden against something wet, and her tears flowed.
When she recovered her composure sufficiently to know what was going on about her, she heard something of how it all had happened.