t. He shuddered
from head to foot, "She is dead--she is dead!" broke from his chilled
lips.

"Oh, Mr. Harrington, Mr. Harrington, what can we do? What can we do?"
groaned Ben, clasping his huge hands, and crying like a child over the
poor lady. "She isn't dead--don't! That word is enough to kill a poor
miserable feller, as wanted to die for her and couldn't."

His only answer was a low moan from James Harrington.

"Is there no house, no living soul near to give us help?" said James
Harrington, lifting his white face to that of Ben Benson, while his
voice shook, and his arms trembled around the cold form they half
supported, half embraced. "If there is a spark of life left it will go
out in this cold--if she is dead--"

"Don't! oh, Mister James, don't!" cried Ben wringing his hands with
fresh violence, "them's cruel words to stun a poor fellow's heart
with--she ain't dead, God don't take his angels up to glory in that 'ere
way!"

James laid Mabel reverently from his arms, and stood up casting anxious
glances through the storm.

"There is a light, yonder upon the hill-side,--you can just see it
through the drifting clouds--go, Ben, climb for your life and bring us
help!"

Ben stooped down, clapped a hand on each knee and took an observation.

"There is a light, that's sartin," he said joyfully, settling himself in
his wet clothes and making a start for the hill; but directly he turned
back again.

"If she's so near gone as you speak on, Mister James, it wouldn't be of
no use for me to go up there for help--she'd be chilled through and
through, till there was no bringing her back, long afore I could
half-way climb the hill!"

"I fear it, I fear it!" said Harrington, looking mournfully down on the
white face at his feet, "God help her!"

"See," said Ben stretching forth his hand towards the burning cedar,
"God Almighty has gin us light and fire close by--the grass is crisped
and dried up all around that tree. What if we carry the madam there?
I'll go up the hill with a heart in it arter that!"

Ben stooped as if about to take the cold form of his mistress in his
arms, but as his hands touched her garments some inward restraint fell
upon him, and he drew back, looking wistfully from Harrington to the
prostrate woman he dared not raise from the earth even in her extremity.

As he stooped a strange light had flashed into James Harrington's eyes,
and he made a motion as if to push the poor boatman aside.

Ben