ow was gloom and horror, cold eternal
stillness, and oblivion everlasting. Even the new white frock awoke no
flutter upon that sullen breast.
Dolly heaved a sigh and shuddered, but she did not hesitate. Her mind
was wandering, but her heart was fixed to make atonement, to give its
life for the life destroyed, and to lie too deep for shame or sorrow.
Suddenly a faint gleam caught her eyes. The sob of self-pity from her
fair young breast had brought into view her cherished treasures, bright
keepsakes of the girlish days when many a lover worshipped her. Taking
from her neck the silken braid, she kissed them, and laid them on the
bank. "They were all too good for me," she thought; "they shall not
perish with me."
Then, with one long sigh, she called up all her fleeting courage, and
sprang upon a fallen trunk which overhung the water. "There will be no
Dan to save me now," she said as she reached the end of it. "Poor Dan!
He will be sorry for me. This is the way out of it."
Her white satin shoes for a moment shone upon the black bark of the
tree, and, with one despairing prayer to Heaven, she leaped into the
liquid grave.
Dan was afar, but another was near, who loved her even more than Dan.
Blyth Scudamore heard the plunge, and rushed to the brink of the pit,
and tore his coat off. For a moment he saw nothing but black water
heaving silently; then something white appeared, and moved, and a faint
cry arose, and a hopeless struggle with engulfing death began.
"Keep still, don't struggle, only spread your arms, and throw your head
back as far as you can," he cried, as he swam with long strokes towards
her. But if she heard, she could not heed, as the lights of the deep sky
came and went, and the choking water flashed between, and gurgled into
her ears and mouth, and smothered her face with her own long hair.
She dashed her poor helpless form about, and flung out her feet for
something solid, and grasped in dim agony at the waves herself had made.
Then her dress became heavily bagged with water, and the love of life
was quenched, and the night of death enveloped her. Without a murmur,
down she went, and the bubbles of her breath came up.
Scudamore uttered a bitter cry, for his heart was almost broken--within
an arm's-length of his love, and she was gone for ever! For the moment
he did not perceive that the clasp of despair must have drowned them
both. Pointing his hands and throwing up his heels, he made one vain
d
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