his hands
and face are cold. She cannot be sure that he has recognised her.
Then she knows she is being spoken to. It is the fisherman's wife
who speaks.

"We could find no way to get the gentleman's wet garments from him,
but we might make a shift to try again. He's a bit hard to move. Not
too much at once, Tom." Her husband is pouring brandy from his flask
into a mug.

"Has he had any brandy?"

"Barely to speak of. Tell the lady, Tom!"

"No more than the leaving of a flask nigh empty out in my boat. It did
him good, too. He got the speech to tell of the young lady, else--God
help us!--we might have rowed him in, and lost the bit of water she
was under. But we had the luck to find her." It was the owner of the
cobble who spoke.

"Gerry, drink some of this at once. It's me--Rosey--your wife!" She is
afraid his head may fail, for anything may happen now; but the brandy
the fisherman's wife has handed to her revives him. No one speaks for
awhile, and Rosalind, in the dazed state that so perversely notes and
dwells on some small thing of no importance, and cannot grasp the
great issue of some crisis we are living through, is keenly aware of
the solemn ticking of a high grandfather clock, and of the name of the
maker on its face--"Thomas Locock, Rochester." She sees it through
the door into the front room, and wonders what the certificate or
testimonial in a frame beside it is; and whether the Bible on the table
below it, beside the fat blue jug with a ship and inscriptions on it,
has illustrations and the Stem of Jesse rendered pictorially. Or is it
"Pilgrim's Progress," and no Bible at all? Who or what is she, that can
sit and think of this and that, knowing that a world--her world and her
husband's--is at stake, and that a terrible game is being played to
save it, there within twenty yards of them? If she could only have
given active help! But that she knows is impossible. She knows enough
to be satisfied that all that can be done is being done; that even
warmth and stimulants are useless, perhaps even injurious, till
artificial respiration has done its work. She can recall Sally's voice
telling her of these things. Yes, she is best here beside her husband.

What is it that he says in a gasping whisper? Can any one tell him
what it is has happened? She cannot--perhaps could not if she
knew--and she does not yet know herself. She repeats her question
to the fisherman and his wife. They look at each other and say y