thankful joy
warmed his shivering body when the rescued woman uttered a low cry of
pain which told him that he had not toiled in vain. He gently slipped
his arm between the hard elbow of the marble seat and her head, to give
it a somewhat softer resting-place. Her abundant hair fell in clammy
tresses, covering her face like a thick but fine veil; he parted it to
the right and left and then--then he sank on his knees by her side as if
a sudden bolt had fallen from the blue sky above them; for the features
were hers, Selene's, and the pale girl before whom he was kneeling was
she herself, the woman he loved.

Almost beside himself and trembling in every limb, he drew her closer
to him and put his ear against her mouth to listen whether he had not
deceived himself, whether she had not indeed fallen a victim to the
waves or whether some warm breath were passing the portals of her lips.

Yes she breathed! she was alive! Full of thankful ecstasy he pressed his
cheek to hers. Oh! how cold she was, icy, cold as death!

The torch of life was flickering, but he would not--could not--must not
let it die out: and with all the care, rapidity and decision of the most
capable man, he once more raised her, lifted her in both arms as if she
were a child, and carried her straight to the house whose white walls he
could see gleaming among the shrubs behind the terrace. The little lamp
was still burning in dame Hannah's room, which Selene had so lately
quitted; in front of the window through which the dim light came to
mingle with the moonbeams, lay the flowers whose perfume had so troubled
the suffering girl, and with them Hannah's clay jar, all still strewn on
the ground.

Was this nosegay his gift? Very likely.

But the lamp-lighted room into which he now looked could be none other
than the sick-room, which he recognized from the sculptor's account. The
housedoor was open and even that of the room in which he had seen the
bed was unfastened; he pushed it open with his foot, entered the room,
and laid Selene on the vacant couch.

There she lay as if dead; and as he looked at her immovable features,
hallowed to solemnity by sorrow and suffering, his heart was touched
with an ineffable solicitude, sympathy and pity; and, as a brother
might bend over a sleeping sister, he bent over Selene and kissed her
forehead. She moved, opened her eyes, gazed into his face--but her
glance was so full of horror, so vague, glassy and bewildered, th