t even suggest itself. But
now here was the lady herself. Here she stood. Now I could understand
the emotion, the agitation, and all that, of the previous evening. This
would at once account for it all. And here she stood--the lady herself
--and that lady was no other than Miss O'Halloran.

By Jove!

Miss O'Halloran looked very much confused, and very much embarrassed.
Her eyes lowered and sought the floor, and in this way she advanced and
took my proffered hand. 'Pon my life, I don't think I ever saw any
thing more beautiful than she was as this confusion covered her lovely
face; and the eyes which thus avoided mine seemed to my imagination
still more lovely than they had been before.

And this was the one--I thought, as I took her hand--this was the one
--the companion of my perilous trip--the life that I had saved. Yet
this discovery filled me with wonder. This one, so gay, so genial, so
laughter-loving--this one, so glowing with the bloom of health, and the
light of life, and the sparkle of wit--this one! It seemed impossible.
There swept before me on that instant the vision of the ice, that
quivering form clinging to me, that pallid face, those despairing eyes,
that expression of piteous and agonizing entreaty, those wild words of
horror and of anguish. There came before me the phantom of that form
which I had upraised from the ice when it had sunk down in
lifelessness, whose white face rested on my shoulder as I bore it away
from the grasp of death; and that vision, with all its solemn, tragic
awfulness seemed out of keeping with this. Miss O'Halloran? Impossible!
But yet it must be so, since she thus confessed it My own memory had
been at fault. The face on the ice which haunted me was not the face
that I saw before me; but, then, Miss O'Halloran in despair must have a
different face from Miss O'Halloran in her happy and peaceful home. All
these thoughts passed through me as I took her hand; but they left me
with the impression that my vision was a mistake, and that this lady
was in very deed the companion of that fearful journey.

I pressed her hand in silence. I could not speak. Under the pressure of
thoughts and recollections that came sweeping in upon me, I was dumb;
and so I wandered away, and fell into a seat. Yet, in my stupefaction,
I could see that Hiss O'Halloran showed an emotion equal to mine. She
had not spoken a word. She sat down, with her eyes on the floor, and
much agitation in her manner.