d
at him out of her despairing eyes. Then she clasped her hands, and cried
aloud, in broken voice: "Brother Albert!"

And then with a broken cry she sank.

Oh! Katy! Katy! It were better to sink. I can hardly shed a tear for
thee, as I see thee sink to thy cold bed at the lake-bottom among the
slimy water-weeds and leeches; but for women who live to trust
professions, and who find themselves cast off and sinking--neglected and
helpless in life--for them my heart is breaking.

Oh! little Katy. Sweet, and loving, and trustful! It were better to
sink among the water-weeds and leeches than to live on. God is more
merciful than man.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DRAGGING.

Yes, God is indeed more merciful than man. There are many things worse
than death. There is a fold where no wolves enter; a country where a
loving heart shall not find its own love turned into poison; a place
where the wicked cease from troubling--yes, even in this heretical day,
let us be orthodox enough to believe that there is a land where no Smith
Westcotts ever come.

There are many cases in which it were better to die. It is easy enough to
say it before it comes. Albert Charlton had said--how many times!--that
he would rather see Katy dead than married to Westcott. But, now that
Katy was indeed dead, how did he feel?

Charlton and Gray had paddled hard with crooked limbs, the boat was
unmanageable, and they could with difficulty keep her in her coarse. As
they neared the capsized boat, they saw that the raft had taken the
people from it, and Albert heard the voice--there could be no mistake as
to the voice, weak and shivering as it was--of Isa Marlay, calling to him
from the raft:

"We are all safe. Go and save Katy and--him!"

"There they air!" said Gray, pointing to two heads just visible above
the water. "Pull away, by thunder!" And the two half-exhausted young men
swung the boat round, and rowed. How they longed for the good oars that
had sent the "Pirate's Bride" driving through the water that afternoon!
How they grudged the time spent in righting her when she veered to right
or left! At last they heard Katy's voice cry out, "Brother Albert!"

"O God!" groaned Charlton, and bent himself to his oar again.

"Alb--" The last cry was half-drowned in the water, and when the boat,
with half-a-dozen more strokes, reached the place where Westcott was, so
that he was able to seize the side, there was no Kate to be seen. Without
waiting to lift