“See, see,” she shrieked; “he stands tottering on the vessel’s side. Hold him back for mercy sake, hold him back, or he will be lost! Oh, Hugh, but one moment--pause--for very charity pause! I come to you--one moment, Hugh--I will hang on your breast, I will cling to you, I will go through the world with you--stay--one instant! Save him! Save him! Hugh!--Hugh!--see, he curses me--his eyes glare angrily on me, he tosses his hands wildly in the air--he leaps--ha!” A piercing shriek burst from her lips, and rang through the house. Evangeline threw her arms round her sister, and by force prevented her from springing from the bed on to the floor. “Helen, darling,” she exclaimed, sobbing, as she felt the quivering, trembling frame of her sister shake in every limb, as though she was struck with an ague--“Helen, look upon me--I am Eva, sister Eva; you see only a horrible vision--a dreadful dream; you are at home in your own room--oh, Helen, Helen darling, speak to me one word, say that you know me, one word, Helen dearest.” “One word, Helen dearest! the words mock me,” exclaimed Helen, in a low subdued tone, her large dark eyes wandering slowly round the room. “One word, Helen, dearest!--and I would not utter it. My cold selfishness has killed him. The remorseless sea has closed over him, the moaning wind chants his dirge, the slimy seaweed entangles his locks, he lays upon the cold, cold sand in the green depths, his white wan face turned, despairing, to the harsh world which had no compassion for him. He is gone, he is for ever gone!--I--I have slain him!” A fearful passion of hysteric weeping followed these words. Her whole frame was convulsed. It took the united aid of the physician, Chayter, and Evangeline to hold her down, in order to prevent her committing some wild act of delirious extravagance. The paroxysm passed away but it left her utterly prostrate. The physician declaring her out of immediate danger, retired, leaving Evangeline and Chayter to watch by her as she lay, wan and motionless--the faint heaving of her bosom only telling that she was not dead. Helen’s intercourse with Hugh was known only to herself and to him--she had no _confidante_--and it was well that Mrs. Grahame was not present during the ravings uttered by her daughter. A secret is never so well kept as when it is never entrusted. Helen believed this, and confided to no one the love passage in her young life, Evangeline, in her innocence, believed that the mere relation of the incident with which Hugh Riversdale was connected, coming upon Helen at a moment when she was not quite in health, had so shocked her as to produce this grave result; but such would not have been the interpretation by Mrs. Grahame.