"I must get him to the side," she said to herself, and she beat her hands feebly on the ice. Away in the distance, in some other world, the band struck up, "He's a fine old English gentleman." Her hands touched something wet and warm. "The thaw has come at last," she thought, and consciousness and feeling ebbed away together. CHAPTER III. "And dawn, sore trembling still and grey with fear, Looked hardly forth, a face of heavier cheer Than one which grief or dread yet half enshrouds." SWINBURNE. When Di came to herself, it was to find that she was sitting on the bank supported by Miss Crupps' trembling arm, with her head on Miss Crupps' shoulder. Some one, bending over her--could it be Lord Hemsworth with that blanched face and bare head?--was wiping her face with the gentleness of a woman. "Have I had a fall?" she asked dizzily. "I don't remember. I thought it was--Miss Crupps who fell." "Yes, you have had a fall," said Lord Hemsworth, hurriedly; "but you will be all right directly. Don't be all night with that brandy, Lumley." Di suddenly perceived Mr. Lumley close at hand, trying to jerk something out of a little silver lamp into a tumbler. She had seen that lamp before. It had been handed round with lighted brandy in it with the mince-pies. No one drank it by itself. Evidently there was something wrong. "I don't understand," she said, beginning to look about her. A confused gleam of remembrance was dawning in her eyes which terrified Lord Hemsworth. "Drink this," he said quickly, pressing the tumbler against her lip. Her teeth chattered against the rim. Miss Crupps was weeping silently. Di pushed away the glass and stared wildly about her. What was this great crowd of eyes kept back by a chain of men? What was that man in a red uniform with a trumpet, craning forward to see? There was a sound of women crying. How dark it was! Where was the moon gone to? "What is it?" she whispered hoarsely, stretching out her hands to Lord Hemsworth, and looking at him with an agony of appeal. "What has happened?" But he only took her hands and held them hard in his. If he could have died to spare her that next moment he would have done it. "When I say three," said a distinct voice near at hand. "Gently, men. One, two, _three_. That's it." Di turned sharply in the direction of the voice. There was a knot of people on the ice at a little distance. One was kneeling down. Another knelt too, holding a lantern ringed with mist. As she looked, the others raised something between them in a fur rug, something heavy, and began to move slowly to the bank.