ment of embracing, Elfride's eyes involuntarily flashed towards
the Puffin steamboat. It had doubled the point, and was no longer to be
seen.

An overwhelming rush of exultation at having delivered the man she
revered from one of the most terrible forms of death, shook the gentle
girl to the centre of her soul. It merged in a defiance of duty to
Stephen, and a total recklessness as to plighted faith. Every nerve
of her will was now in entire subjection to her feeling--volition as a
guiding power had forsaken her. To remain passive, as she remained now,
encircled by his arms, was a sufficiently complete result--a glorious
crown to all the years of her life. Perhaps he was only grateful, and
did not love her. No matter: it was infinitely more to be even the slave
of the greater than the queen of the less. Some such sensation as this,
though it was not recognized as a finished thought, raced along the
impressionable soul of Elfride.

Regarding their attitude, it was impossible for two persons to go nearer
to a kiss than went Knight and Elfride during those minutes of impulsive
embrace in the pelting rain. Yet they did not kiss. Knight's peculiarity
of nature was such that it would not allow him to take advantage of the
unguarded and passionate avowal she had tacitly made.

Elfride recovered herself, and gently struggled to be free.

He reluctantly relinquished her, and then surveyed her from crown to
toe. She seemed as small as an infant. He perceived whence she had
obtained the rope.

'Elfride, my Elfride!' he exclaimed in gratified amazement.

'I must leave you now,' she said, her face doubling its red, with
an expression between gladness and shame 'You follow me, but at some
distance.'

'The rain and wind pierce you through; the chill will kill you. God
bless you for such devotion! Take my coat and put it on.'

'No; I shall get warm running.'

Elfride had absolutely nothing between her and the weather but her
exterior robe or 'costume.' The door had been made upon a woman's wit,
and it had found its way out. Behind the bank, whilst Knight reclined
upon the dizzy slope waiting for death, she had taken off her whole
clothing, and replaced only her outer bodice and skirt. Every thread of
the remainder lay upon the ground in the form of a woollen and cotton
rope.

'I am used to being wet through,' she added. 'I have been drenched on
Pansy dozens of times. Good-bye till we meet, clothed and in our right
minds, b