the ice. It was some time before they could get near him to get
him out, and it seems there is some injury."

Dr. Brown came slowly out, half closing the parlor door behind him.

"I can do nothing more," he said. "If he lived he would have brain
fever. But he is dying."

"Does he know her?"

"No. He may know her at the last, but it is doubtful. I can do nothing,
and I am wanted elsewhere."

"I will stop," said the Bishop.

"Shall I take you back?" said Dr. Brown, looking at Dick. But Dick shook
his head.

"I might be of use to her," he said, when the doctor had gone.

So the two men who loved Rachel sat in impotent compassion in the little
kitchen through the interminable hours of the night. At long intervals
the Bishop went quietly into the parlor, but apparently he was not
wanted there. Once he went out and got a fresh candle, and put it into
the tin candlestick, and set it among the china ornaments on wool-work
mats.

Hugh lay quite still now with his eyes half closed. His hands lay
passive in Rachel's. The restless fever of movement was passed. She
almost wished it back, so far, so far was his life ebbing away from
hers.

"Hughie," she whispered to him over and over again. "I love you. Do not
leave me."

But he muttered continually to himself and took no heed of her.

At last she gave up the hopeless task of making him hear, and listened
intently. She could make no sense of what he said. The few words she
could catch were repeated a hundred times amid an unintelligible murmur.
The boat, and Loftus, and her own name--and Crack. Who was Crack? She
remembered the little dog which had been drowned. And the lips which
were so soon to be silent talked on incoherently while Rachel's heart
broke for a word.

The night was wearing very thin. The darkness before the dawn, the
deathly chill before the dawn were here. Through the low uncurtained
window Rachel could see the first wan light of the new day and the new
year.

Perhaps he would know her with the daylight.

The new day came up out of the white east in a great peace, pale as
Christ newly risen from the dead, with the splendor of God's love upon
Him.

A great peace and light stole together into the little room.

Hugh stirred, and Rachel saw a change pass over his pinched, sunken
face.

"It was the only way to reach her," he said, slowly and distinctly; "the
only way. I shall get through, and I shall find her upon the other side,
as I did before