We must return to Irene Brooke that fatal night, whose accumulating
horrors induced a transient madness that drove the wretched girl to seek
oblivion from her woes in self-destruction.
Life is sweet, even to the wretched. Irene's sudden, violent plunge into
the cold waves cooled the fever of her heart and brain like magic. In
that one awful, tragic moment in which the waters closed darkly over her
golden head, a sharp remorse, a terrible regret woke to life within her
heart.
Out of that swift repentance and awful despair, a cry for pity broke
wildly from her almost strangling lips:
"Oh, Lord, pardon and save me!"
As she came back from the depths with a swift rebound to the surface of
the water, the girl threw out her white arms gropingly, as if to seize
upon some support, however slight and frail, on which to buoy her
drenched and sinking frame.
Joy! as if God himself had answered her wild appeal for help and pardon,
a strong, wide plank drifted to her reach. Irene grasped it tightly and
threw herself upon it, while a cry of thankfulness broke from her lips.
Alone in the dark and rushing waves, her heart filled with relief at the
thought of this frail barrier between herself and that mysterious
Eternity, to which a moment ago she had blindly hastened.
"If I can only hold on a little while, Elaine will bring me help and
rescue," she said to herself, hopefully, and calling her mother by the
old familiar sisterly name, for the name of mother was strange to her
young lips yet.
Alas, for her springing hopes! Poor Elaine lay white and still in that
long, long trance of unconsciousness that followed on her realization of
her daughter's suicide. Her locked lips did not unclose to tell her
anxious watchers the story of that white form floating on the dark
waters, waiting, hoping, praying for rescue, while her strength ebbed,
and her arms grew tired and weak, clinging so tightly to that slender
plank that floated between her and the death from which she shrunk
tremblingly now with all the ardor of a young heart that has found life
a goodly thing and fair.
No rescue came. The girl floated farther and farther out to sea in that
thick darkness that comes before the dawn. Hours that were long as years
seemed to pass over her head, and hope died in her breast as the cruel
waves beat and buffeted her tender form.
"I am forgotten and deserted," she moaned. "My mother has raised no
alarm. Is it possible she was glad to be rid of me, and held her peace?"
A jeering voice seemed to whisper in her ear:
"It is best for all that you die. Bertha and her mother hated you. You
were a stumbling block in your mother's path. You had involved Guy
Kenmore in a fatal entanglement. You had no right and no place in the
world. Not one whom you have left but will be glad that you are dead."
A cry of despair came from the beautiful girlish lips in the darkness.
"Oh, God, and only yesterday life seemed so beautiful and fair! Now I
must die, alone and unregretted! Oh, cruel world, farewell," she cried,
for she felt her strength forsaking her, and knew that in a moment more
her arms would relax their hold and that she would sink forever amid the
engulfing waves.
But in that last perilous moment something occurred that seemed to her
dazzled and bewildered senses nothing less than a miracle.
In her bodily pain and mental trouble, with eyes blinded by the salt sea
waves that mixed with her bitter tears, Irene had not perceived the
faint grey light of dawn dispelling the thick darkness of the night. But
suddenly, all suddenly, the crest of the waves was illuminated
marvellously by a gleam of brightness that shot far and wide across the
water; the blank horizon glowed with light.
"And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn."
Startled by the swift and seemingly instant transition from darkness to
light, Irene uttered a shrill, sharp cry and looked up. The beautiful,
life-giving sun was just peeping across the level green waves, and
touching their foamy crests with gold. Through half-dazzled eyes she saw
riding, like a thing of beauty on the beautiful water, a stately,
white-sailed yacht only a few rods away. Irene could see moving figures
on her decks.
There was one awful moment when the girl's breath failed, her heart
stood still, and she could scarcely see the moving yacht outlined
against the rosy dawn, for the mist that filled her eyes. Then she shook
off the trance that threatened to destroy her, and with one last,
desperate effort sent her sharp young voice ringing clearly across the
waves:
"Help! Help! In God's name, help!"
The cry was heard and answered by the moving figures on the vessel's
deck.