he heard his
name called, and turned, now hither, now thither, in wild confusion.
Meanwhile, the storm deepened, and the wind smote the sea with frequent
claps, sharp and sudden as the rush of steam from some great steam-pipe.
Whether his head reeled with the terrible uproar around, or that his
mind gave way between agony and doubt, who can tell? He swam madly on
and on, breasting the waves with his strong chest, and lost to almost
all consciousness, save of the muscular effort he was making--none saw
him more!

The evening was approaching, the storm had subsided, and the tall Alps
shone out in all the varied colours of rock, or herbage, or snow-peak;
and the blue lake at the foot, in its waveless surface, repeated all
their grand outlines and all their glorious tints. The water was covered
with row-boats in every direction, sent out to seek for Florence and her
companion. They were soon perceived to cluster round one spot, where a
dismasted boat lay half-filled with water, and a figure, as of a girl
sleeping, lay in the stern, her head resting on the gunwale. It was
Florence, still breathing, still living, but terror-stricken, lost to
all consciousness, her limbs stiffened with cold. She was lifted into a
boat and carried on shore.

Happier for her the long death-like sleep--that lasted for days--than
the first vague dawn of consciousness, when her senses returning,
brought up the terrible memory of the storm, and the last scene with
Calvert. With a heart-rending cry for mercy she would start up in bed,
and, before her cry had well subsided, would come the consciousness that
the peril was past, and then, with a mournful sigh, would she sink back
again to try and regain sufficient self-control to betray nothing; not
even of him who had deserted her.

Week after week rolled by, and she made but slow progress towards
recovery. There was not, it is true, what the doctors could pronounce
to be malady--her heightened pulse alone was feverish--but a great
shock had shaken her, and its effects remained in an utter apathy and
indifference to everything around her.

She wished to be alone--to be left in complete solitude, and the room
darkened. The merest stir or movement in the house jarred on her nerves
and irritated her, and with this came back paroxysms of excitement that
recalled the storm and the wreck. Sad, therefore, and sorrowful to see
as were the long hours of her dreary apathy, they were less painful
than these