ore him, raging and quivering in every limb.

The nurse came in.

"Fetch her child," he cried; "God have mercy on her."

"Ah, then he is dead," said she, with stony calmness. "I drove him to
sea, and he is dead."

The nurse rushed in, and held the child to her.

She would not look at it.

"Dead!"

"Yes, our poor Christie is gone--but his child is here--the image of
him. Do not forget the mother. Have pity on his child and yours."

"Take it out of my sight!" she screamed. "Away with it, or I shall
murder it, as I have murdered its father. My dear Christie, before all
that live! I have killed him. I shall die for him. I shall go to him."
She raved and tore her hair. Servants rushed in. Rosa was carried to her
bed, screaming and raving, and her black hair all down on both sides, a
piteous sight.

Swoon followed swoon, and that very night brain fever set in with all
its sad accompaniments; a poor bereaved creature, tossing and moaning;
pale, anxious, but resolute faces of the nurse and the kitchen-maid
watching: on one table a pail of ice, and on another the long, thick
raven hair of our poor Simpleton, lying on clean silver paper. Dr.
Philip had cut it all off with his own hand, and he was now folding it
up, and crying over it; for he thought to himself, "Perhaps in a few
days more only this will be left of her on earth."

CHAPTER XV.

Staines fell head-foremost into the sea with a heavy plunge. Being an
excellent swimmer, he struck out the moment he touched the water, and
that arrested his dive, and brought him up with a slant, shocked and
panting, drenched and confused. The next moment he saw, as through a
fog--his eyes being full of water--something fall from the ship. He
breasted the big waves, and swam towards it: it rose on the top of a
wave, and he saw it was a life-buoy. Encumbered with wet clothes, he
seemed impotent in the big waves; they threw him up so high, and down so
low.

Almost exhausted, he got to the life-buoy, and clutched it with a fierce
grasp and a wild cry of delight. He got it over his head, and, placing
his arms round the buoyant circle, stood with his breast and head out of
water, gasping.

He now drew a long breath, and got his wet hair out of his eyes, already
smarting with salt water, and, raising himself on the buoy, looked out
for help.

He saw, to his great concern, the ship already at a distance. She seemed
to have flown, and she was still drifting fast away from