Then, as the white foam was swept away, and the steamer lay to, the life-buoy was thrown over, men were seen with lanthorns in boats rising and falling upon the black water, which reflected the gleam of the light; but in spite of searchings here and there, backwards and forwards, no one was seen clinging to the life-buoy, or hauled into either of the boats; no grey head or appealing hands were visible at the summit of a wave or in its hollow; black water only, everywhere, save when it curled back in a creamy foam from shore or pile. Then came once more the order, "Go on a-head!" the "clink, clank, clank," in the engine-room, where there was a warm red glow from furnace-doors, and the hot smell of oil and steam, a loud hiss or two, the huge cylinders, beginning to swing to and fro, and the pistons to rise and fall with their cranks, churning the black water again into white foam. Then the stern lights of the steamer might be seen rising and falling as she passed out of the harbour mouth, and slowly, one by one the boats returned to their moorings, and those who had manned them, to the landing-stage. "Name on portmanter, R. Pellet," said one man in wet oilskins, holding down his lanthorn, and examining the little black valise as it lay upon the pier, now covered with snow-flakes. "Very shocking, but I don't see as we could have saved him, or done more than we did." "Get his body to-morrow, d'ye think?" said a bystander with a short pipe to a fishy-looking man in a blue jersey and a sou'wester. "May be yes, may be no," said the man addressed; "but most like no, for he'll be carried out to sea, safe as wheat." Then there was a buzz of voices as fresh faces appeared on the scene. "Here, for God's sake, help!" exclaimed Harry Clayton, sick himself almost unto death; "this lady has fainted." Volume 3, Chapter XXIV. AFTER A LAPSE. "I cannot refrain from writing to congratulate you, my dear Clayton," wrote Sir Francis Redgrave, in a letter the young man sat reading in his rooms at Cambridge, as he leaned back, his temples throbbing, worn out with the arduous mental struggle in which he had been engaged. "Such an honour," said Sir Francis, "is, I know, not easily earned, and I feel that yours has been a long and gallant fight. It would have afforded me great pleasure if Lionel had been gifted with your assiduity, and been possessed of similar tastes; but I have never tried to force him. I can get from him but few letters now, so can readily suppose that you have not been more favoured, and are therefore, most likely, not aware of his engagement. I enter into these details with you, on account of the interest you have always displayed in all concerning him. The lady is one whom he has Page 229 missing from scan.