ive after her, then he knew that the pit was too deep for the bottom
to be reached in that way. He swam to the trunk from which Dolly had
leaped, and judging the distance by the sullen ripple, dashed in with
a dive like a terrified frog. Like a bullet he sank to the bottom, and
groped with three fathoms of water above him. Just as his lungs were
giving out, he felt something soft and limp and round. Grasping this
by the trailing hair, he struck mightily up for the surface, and drew a
long breath, and sustained above water the head that fell back upon his
panting breast.

Some three hours later, Dolly Darling lay in her own little bed, as pale
as death, but sleeping the sleep of the world that sees the sun; while
her only sister knelt by her side, weeping the tears of a higher world
than that. "How could I be so brutal, and so hard?" sobbed Faith.
"If father has seen it, will he ever forgive me? His last words
were--'forgive, and love.'"

CHAPTER LXIII

THE FATAL STEP

As Carne rode up the hill that night towards his ruined castle, the
flush of fierce excitement and triumphant struggle died away, and
self-reproach and miserable doubt struck into him like ague. For the
death of Twemlow--as he supposed--he felt no remorse whatever. Him he
had shot in furious combat, and as a last necessity; the fellow had
twice insulted him, and then insolently collared him. And Faith, who had
thwarted him with Dolly, and been from the first his enemy, now would
have to weep and wail, and waste her youth in constancy. All that was
good; but he could not regard with equal satisfaction the death of the
ancient Admiral. The old man had brought it upon himself by his stupid
stubbornness; and looking fairly upon that matter, Carne scarcely saw
how to blame himself. Still, it was a most unlucky thing, and must lead
to a quantity of mischief. To-morrow, or at the latest Monday, was to
have crowned with grand success his years of toil and danger. There
still might be the landing, and he would sail that night to hasten it,
instead of arranging all ashore; but it could no longer be a triumph of
crafty management. The country was up, the Admiral's death would
spread the alarm and treble it; and worst of all, in the hot pursuit of
himself, which was sure to follow when people's wits came back to them,
all the stores and ammunition, brought together by so much skill and
patience and hardihood, must of necessity be discovered and fall into
th