the glasses. They were very strong ones, and her vision keen. A spasm
passed over her face.

"Captain Du Meresq is quite safe," said she, bitterly. She had looked at
the moment when Bertie stretched out his arm for Cecil's hand, and was
carrying it to his lips.

Mrs. Rolleston's raptures were too oppressive just then. Bluebell felt
thankful to hear a slight disturbance, which betokened that the Colonel
had returned. His wife, quite unnerved by the transition from despair to
joy, could conceal nothing, and, rushing down, poured into his ear all
the dread and relief of the past hours. The Colonel hearing it thus
abruptly, and unsoftened by previous anxiety, only felt intense anger at
Cecil's having gone alone with these two men; and the danger and exposure
to the storm that she had undergone aggravated the offence considerably.
He felt too strongly to say much to his wife, who, indeed, had suffered
quite enough already; and the sting of it all--his growing fear of Du
Meresq's influence over Cecil--he was not disposed to confide to her.

"I have been too careless," he reflected, "and I cannot trust Bella,
who will never see a fault in her brother. However, he will be gone
to-morrow, and I will take care they never meet again till Cecil is
married."

Mrs. Rolleston, in the restless activity of a lightened heart, had
hurried away to order large fires to be lit in their rooms, and hot
cordials and everything imagination could suggest placed ready. Indeed
she racked her brains to remember what restoratives were usually applied
to drowned persons. Holding them up by the heels or _not_ doing so
(whichever it was), and hot blankets, were the only prescriptions she
could recollect; and then the culprits themselves came in, looking
particularly fresh and pleased with themselves.

Cecil she proposed instantly to consign to a warm bed, but the girl
laughed her to scorn, and would not hear of being shelved in that manner;
and, finally, they all came down to dinner, talkative from a delightful
sense of reaction. This superfluous effervescence, however, was soon
flattened by the unsympathetic gloom of the head of the family. It was
very unlike his usual manner, and not a good augury, thought two of the
party, who ascribed it to the right cause.

Cecil, however, was determined to resist the damping influence as long
as she could. She rattled off lively French airs at the piano, and
challenged her father to chess; but he only drily