Want of food for so many hours in his already weak and exhausted state, rendered Morley entirely helpless, and listless to all that might happen to them. He lay down in the bottom of the boat without the power to move or speak. The boy bore up as bravely as he could, and tried to support his companion; but he too gave way after a time, and then they lay side by side in the bottom of the boat, expecting every minute to feel a crash against the rock, and then all would be over.
At last it came—a bump! a crash! The water seemed filling their mouths and ears. They revived for a moment, and were fully alive to their awful position. All the actions of their past lives rushed into their minds, and they seemed to live their lives over again, in that short moment of time.
Alrina's form was vividly present to Morley's mind for an instant, and then all was blank!
CHAPTER XXXII. ALRINA'S TROUBLES ARE INCREASED BY AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY.
Mr. Freeman had returned to St. Just with his daughter, but neither of them had appeared much in public since. The servant, Alice Ann, said that her young mistress was looking very whisht and palched, and "The Maister" worn't like hisself at all. He was continually locked in his private room, and she had seen him through the keyhole more than once, upon his knees before a great chest, taking things out and putting things in.
"What sort of things be they, then?" Mrs. Trenow would ask; for to her, as her nearest neighbour and the mother of her sweetheart, Alice Ann was most communicative.
"Why, powers of things," would be the reply; "silks and satins, all foreign like, and gold and silver I b'lieve—a purty passle."
Miss Freeman had not returned, so that there was no one to watch Alrina's movements, and she might have gone out and stayed out all day if she liked, but she did not care to move. She would sit in her room all day long, and scarcely touch the little dainties with which Alice Ann tried to tempt her; nor did she care to speak, unless her faithful attendant broached the subject of all others which she well knew occupied her young mistress's every thought. Days and weeks and months had passed away, and yet she had heard nothing of Frederick. She had written him, but he had not replied to her letters. Alice Ann tried to console her; but what could she, a poor ignorant country-girl, say by way of consolation to one possessing the refined and sensitive feelings of Alrina.