"Where? Where?" inquired a dozen eager, interested voices, all at once.

"Just about here. Oh, look for him, listen for him! Do try to save him!"
cried the hypocrite, seizing her own hair, as if she would have pulled
it out by the roots, in her pretended anguish of mind.

"Where did he fall? Did he not struggle?" inquired two or three voices,
as the oarsmen rowed their boat around and around in a circle and peered
over the surface of the water for some sign of the lost man.

"Oh, he sank at once--he sank at once!" cried Mary Grey, beating her
breast.

"But he will come up again. They always do, unless they are seized with
the cramp and it holds them. Keep a bright lookout there, boys, and if
you see so much as a ripple in the water make for it at once! We may
save the poor fellow yet!" said the voice of a man who seemed to be in
authority.

"How in the world did he happen to fall over, miss?" inquired another
voice.

"Oh, my miserable, unlucky hat blew off my head and fell into the water.
I begged him not to mind it--told him I would tie a pocket-handkerchief
over my head--but he wouldn't listen to me. Oh, he wouldn't listen me!
And so, in stooping to recover my wretched hat, he bent over too far,
lost his balance and fell into the water. And oh, he sank at once like
lead! Oh, do try to find him! Oh, do try to save him! He might be
resuscitated even now, if you could find him--might he not?" she cried,
wringing her hands.

"Oh, yes, ma'am!" answered a man, in his good-natured wish to soothe who
he took to be a distracted woman.

And they rowed around and around, peering into the water and listening
for every sound.

But there was no sign of the lost man.

After they had sought for him about an hour the man who seemed to be the
chief among them said:

"I am afraid it is quite vain, ma'am. It is not a drowning, but a
drowned man that we have been seeking for the last hour. Tell us where
you wish to go, and we will take you home. To-morrow the body may be
recovered."

But Mary Grey, with a wild shriek, fell back in her boat and lay like
one in a swoon.

"We must take the lady into this boat of ours, and tow the little one
after us," said the man.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

AFTER THE DARK DEED.

Mary Grey was lifted, in an apparently fainting condition, from her own
little boat into the larger one beside it. She was laid down carefully
and waited on tenderly by the sympathizing ladies in the larger boa