She thought herself still in the river, and when Godfrey, unmindful of us all, and caring little that just outside the door Alice watched and waited, bent over her, and said: “I am here, darling; I have saved you!” she put up both her arms and wound them round him with a convulsive clasp, while Alice came a step nearer, and stood within the room. She had exchanged her saturated clothes for a suit of mine, and with a shawl wrapped about her, stood, with chattering teeth, watching Godfrey as he unclasped the hands from his neck and rubbed them with his own, and rubbed the fair arms, and the pale forehead, and smoothed the long, damp hair, and gave the restoratives, until the blue eyes unclosed and looked at him with something more than recognition in their glance. Then Godfrey was persuaded to leave her and don the dry garments of my brother, which had been waiting for him in an adjoining room. As he passed out he stumbled over a little crumpled figure sitting upon a stool just inside the door, and looking down upon it, he saw that it was Alice. “Why, Allie,” he exclaimed; “I thought you had gone home! Have you been here all the time?” “Yes, Godfrey, all the time!” and a tear stood on Alice’s eyelashes, and her voice was not much like the voice which an hour before had said so bitterly, “I hate you.” Alice never harbored resentment long, and her heart was very sore as she recalled the scene on the river-bank, and wondered if Godfrey had taken her angry words in earnest and felt himself free from her. He could not,—he must not,—he was not free. He had been hers for years, and though she did not know what love was in its full extent, she had a pride in him and a liking for him such as she had never felt for any other man, and as she sat there by the door and watched him bending over the still form on the bed, she was conscious of a new sensation throbbing through her heart, and when he passed her on his way out she could hardly restrain herself from stopping him and suing for pardon. She did _not_ mean what she said when in her madness she had set him free, and thrown back the ring now flashing on Gertie’s finger. Alice knew where it was, and watched it with a strange gleam in her eyes, while a resolution was forming in her mind. The ring was hers, and she would have it; and rising from her seat she went swiftly to the bedside, and seizing Gertie’s hand, wrenched the ring from the unresisting finger and placed it on her own. The act must have hurt Gertie, for she winced, and, opening her eyes, said: “Is it you, Miss Creighton? Are you safe?” Alice did not reply: she had heard the sound of wheels, and hastened out to meet Col. Schuyler and Edith, who had come to take her and Gertie to the Hill.