"

Mabel turned her head and tears stole softly from beneath her closed
lashes. How could she reconcile herself to life again? To be thus torn
back from a sweet delusion, was more painful than all the pangs she had
suffered.

They were silent now. For one moment they had met, soul to soul, but the
old barriers were fast springing up between them, barriers that made the
hearts of both heavy as death, yet neither would have lifted a hand to
tear them away.

Mabel at last quietly wiped the tears from her eyes and sat up. She
still shivered and her face was pale, but she smiled yet, only the smile
was so touchingly sad.

"I must have been quite gone,--why did you bring me back?" she said.

"Why did we bring you back," repeated Harrington with a sudden outburst
of passion, "why did we bring you back!" He checked himself and went on
more calmly. "It is the duty of every one to save life, Mrs. Harrington,
and to receive it gratefully when, by God's mercy, it is saved."

"I know, I know," she answered, attempting to gather up the tresses of
her hair, "I shall be grateful for this gift of life to-morrow; but
now--indeed I am, very thankful that you saved me."

"It was Ben more than myself--but for him you would have been lost,"
answered Harrington, rejecting her sweet gratitude with stoicism. "He
followed you in his boat through all the storm, and was nearly lost with
you!"

"Poor Ben!" she said, "faithful always, I had not thought of him, though
he saved my life."

Harrington had claimed all her gratitude for Ben with resolute
self-restraint; but when she acknowledged it so kindly, he could not
help feeling somewhat wronged. But against such impulses he had armed
himself, and directly cast them aside.

"How strange everything looks," she said, "are those stars breaking
through between the clouds? They seem very pale and sad, after the light
that dazzled me when I first awoke: then there is a mournful sound
coming through the trees--the waters, I suppose. After all, this earth
does seem very dark and sorrowful, to which you have brought me back."

"You are ill yet--you suffer, perhaps?"

"No, I am only sad!"

And so was he. Her mournful voice--the reluctance with which she took
back the burden of life, pained him, yet he could offer no adequate
consolation. Commonplaces are a mockery with persons who know that there
are thoughts in the depths of the soul, which must not be spoken, though
they color every other t