Chapter XVIII: The Sequel

Ellinor's sketching, as we have said, did not progress much.

She was full of thoughts, yet none of pride, of flattered vanity, or exultation were in her mind, but a dull and curious sense of fear and shame--a vague consciousness of doubt and wrong.

Could it be that she--unwittingly--had in any way given encouragement to this young baron, or done aught that led up to the sudden declaration he had made?

She could not tax herself with having done so. She liked him very much--who would not that knew him?--he was so suave, so gentle, and so manly. But love, no--she had no heart for him; and how were they to meet now, after this?

She felt as if suddenly wakened from a dream; but a more terrible awakening was soon to come upon her.

'Nonsense!' she thought; 'this silly young officer must evidently love or flirt with some one. Latterly it was Mary, now it is Ellinor.'

The Baron Rolandsburg was--as Sleath had been in her eyes apparently--the possessor of all she had wished for, and learned to worship--position, rank, riches, and luxury; but neither could love her as poor Bob had done! And now Ellinor was--when too late for the sake of the latter--changed from a somewhat selfish and frivolous girl into a woman of thought, and one capable of much endurance and self-sacrifice.

Through Sir Redmond Sleath her pride had received a severe shock; she had long since come to loathe the very idea of him; as for his name, it never escaped Mary or Mrs. Deroubigne, and her soul sickened when she thought of all she had sacrificed for his unworthy sake, and of the horrible pitfall he had prepared for her.

But why recall these things now, she thought, as she resumed her pencil.

The deep red tints of the golden sun, setting amid fiery haze beyond the Elbe and the tiny hills of Hanover, lay in all their richness on the creek, on the villa and its flowers and shrubs: on Altona in the background, with all its rows of poplars and pointed roofs; and Ellinor often paused in her work, and, wooed by the lap, lap, lapping and murmur of the tide, sank into a kind of dream.

The present fled--the past returned.

She no longer saw the rows of lofty poplars, the long _Palmaille_, and the great church of Altona, or the house on the hill where Dumourier dwelt. She was back in the old summer garden of Birkwoodbrae, with the fragrance of its roses and honeysuckle around her; she heard the familiar hoot of Mary's pet owl--the owl that Robert Wodrow had risked his life to secure; she heard again the murmur of the May and the song of the thrush mingling with the rustle of the silver birches that shadowed the roof under which her parents died.

So, lulled by the beauty of the evening, by the warmth of the sunshine, and the murmuring wavelets of the glorious river, she dropped asleep.

She could not have sat thus above twenty minutes when she was suddenly awakened by the flow of water over her ankles, and, starting up, found herself surrounded by water--water on all sides, and water between her and the shore, which was nearly a quarter of a mile distant, but seemed to be much further off, the once dry sands being now covered by the incoming flood-tide--a tide that flowed with exceeding violence and fury.

A half-stifled shriek escaped her, and she started to her feet. Her easel had been swept away; she attempted to run shorewards; but as the water deepened and rose to her knees she uttered a despairing cry, and rushed back to the sandy knoll on which she had planted her chair, and over which the encroaching water was rising and deepening with every inward flow of the waves.

She was lost!

From the beach (that seemed now so awfully distant) not a soul seemed to observe her terrible predicament.

From being shrill and continuous, her despairing shrieks became hoarse and faint, and, worse than all, the wind seemed to sweep them seaward. Wild and black despair, with the terror of immediate death, filled her heart. What terrible retribution was this? Was she to perish by drowning--to die the same death that Robert Wodrow had died--to perish and leave poor Mary alone in the world--all alone!

She parted the rich brown hair from her brow, and, casting her eyes upward to the flushed evening sky, prayed for strength to die, and for submission to the will of heaven; and, even as she prayed, a wave that rolled nearly to her knees made her stagger. The sandy knoll was completely covered, and the water was rising fast.

A very few minutes more and she would be swept off her feet, to sink and drown! Across the waters of the broad river, the red sun, now level with them and the flat horizon, shed his dazzling rays into her eyes, that were becoming half-blinded by the rising spoon drift torn from the waves by the storm.

It all seemed an unreality--a horrid nightmare.

She heard, or imagined she heard, a cry of encouragement--of coming succour; but, blinded by terror and despair, she knew not whence it came, whether from the land or the water.

A numbness seemed to creep fast over her--a sensation, or rather the want of it, that threatened speedily to paralyse alike thought and feeling.

Human endurance, in the weak and delicate form of the girl, could stand no more; an incoming wave, stronger than the rest, struck her above the waist, and she fell backwards into the water, and, as the latter rose over her head, her senses left her, and darkness closed around her.

Anon she breathed again, and the light flashed into her eyes. She found herself in a boat, encircled by the strong and protecting arm of a man, and closed her eyes with an invocation to heaven, believing that she was being rowed shoreward, for she could hear the regular dash of the oar-blades, and the hard breathing of those who pulled them; but she remained passive and voiceless, with closed eyes, incapable of volition, almost of thought, and certainly of speech.

After a brief space the boat jarred against something. It was the side of a vessel, and she felt herself lifted upward--up--up--and placed in the arms of a man, whose exclamation gave her a species of electric shock.

It was the voice of Sir Redmond Sleath, and it was his astonished and certainly bewildered face that she found close to her own when she opened her eyes, only to shut them once more, as weakness and horror took away her senses again.

_Sleath!_